No wonder it was settled and not taken to trial. On one hand, a bad and sad outcome for Pt. On other hand, the plaintiff side is arguing that the physician should have willingly gone against an explicit statement in the CHG package insert. I cannot reconcile this as in our practice we use betadine for ESI and LP given the CHG package insert statement.
What exactly does it mean when a settlement is reached? Does that mean that the patient's family and the hospital negotiated a dollar amount as compensation for the patient's death?
I don't quite understand. What was the malpractice?
It means the plaintiff agrees to drop the lawsuit in return for a payment from the hospital/doctor. Generally speaking, the doctor admits no wrongdoing when they settle.
Is reaching a settlement common in instances of where there was no obvious wrongdoing? Why would the hospital be incentivized to settle when there is no malpractice, but rather a bad outcome?
Is the settlement covered by the physician's malpractice?
Yes, its fairly common to settle even when there was no obvious wrongdoing. There's a lot of incentive to do this. Once you take a lawsuit to trial, you have no idea what the jury will do. Even if the doctor did nothing wrong, the jury might return a verdict against you. Its also extremely expensive to take a lawsuit to trial. The settlement amounts can vary widely, but it often boils down to choosing a $50,000 settlement rather than taking a case to trial which will waste several years of time, $500,000 of bills from the law firm, and still run the risk of the jury doing something unexpected and returning a verdict with big damages.
Settlements are covered by the malpractice insurance, up to the insurance policy's cap.
No wonder it was settled and not taken to trial. On one hand, a bad and sad outcome for Pt. On other hand, the plaintiff side is arguing that the physician should have willingly gone against an explicit statement in the CHG package insert. I cannot reconcile this as in our practice we use betadine for ESI and LP given the CHG package insert statement.
What exactly does it mean when a settlement is reached? Does that mean that the patient's family and the hospital negotiated a dollar amount as compensation for the patient's death?
I don't quite understand. What was the malpractice?
It means the plaintiff agrees to drop the lawsuit in return for a payment from the hospital/doctor. Generally speaking, the doctor admits no wrongdoing when they settle.
Is reaching a settlement common in instances of where there was no obvious wrongdoing? Why would the hospital be incentivized to settle when there is no malpractice, but rather a bad outcome?
Is the settlement covered by the physician's malpractice?
Yes, its fairly common to settle even when there was no obvious wrongdoing. There's a lot of incentive to do this. Once you take a lawsuit to trial, you have no idea what the jury will do. Even if the doctor did nothing wrong, the jury might return a verdict against you. Its also extremely expensive to take a lawsuit to trial. The settlement amounts can vary widely, but it often boils down to choosing a $50,000 settlement rather than taking a case to trial which will waste several years of time, $500,000 of bills from the law firm, and still run the risk of the jury doing something unexpected and returning a verdict with big damages.
Settlements are covered by the malpractice insurance, up to the insurance policy's cap.