Docs must ‘chase down’ noncompliant patients to avoid lawsuits.
When patients fail to show for their appointments, it’s not just a financial drain on your practice, but a possible legal risk. A physician’s failure to follow up with patients regarding missed appointments, consults or procedures is one of the most common reasons doctors find themselves on the receiving end of a malpractice suit, according to an article from Physicians Practice.
“It might not seem fair that you could be held accountable for a patient’s failure to adhere to critical follow-up recommendations, but it happens all the time,” Jeff Brunken, president and chairman of the board of The MGIS Companies Inc., a physician insurance products and services provider, told Physicians Practice.
A typical scenario is a patient with early stages of cancer who doesn’t schedule a follow-up visit, he explained. “If there is a patient [who] has signs like that, [physicians] need to have a very bulletproof process for follow up and they need to demonstrate that they have made every effort to follow up with that patient, order the correct tests and basically chase down the patient,” Brunken said.
Consider the following strategies to reduce your risk of losing patients to follow-up problems:
- Flag records of patients awaiting crucial appointments or test results. Whether manually or digitally, routinely go back and identify which patients missed key appointments.
- If a patient continually avoids or misses recommended follow-up care, send a letter by certified mail asking him or her to contact your office immediately to schedule the appointment or procedure.
- Have staff schedule critical follow-up appointments before a patient leaves the office.
- Communicate to patients the reasons you need them to return or stay on schedule.
