how to protect your family

I often joke that the way I select doctors is based on whether or not I have ever heard of them. If I haven’t heard of them, that’s a good thing. Since we live in New York, we have access to the greatest number of doctors and hospitals of anywhere in the county. Unfortunately, the reality is that I have handled cases (numerous cases) against every hospital in the City of New York, and a majority of them in the surrounding areas.

As a result, I have found out that really bad things happen at every one of them. Obviously, my family only treats at the one where I see the least number of bad things happening, and I always try to select the doctors who I feel are the most qualified and have the best credentials. While I see first hand through my work that this certainly does not guarantee a good result, at least I have the comfort of knowing that I am doing everything I can to give us the best chance "statistically" to get the best possible care.

I have outlined below the 4-Step Search I perform on every doctor who injures one of my clients. But more importantly, you should know that I perform this exact same search whenever I am considering a new doctor for myself or for anyone in my family. I hope that by taking the time to publish this information, you will be in a better position to make informed choices about the healthcare that you and your family receive. I have been careful to only list sources which are completely free for you to access.

STEP 1. Go to NYDoctorProfile.com

Here you can click on "physician search" and type in your doctor’s name to see some basic credentials. This site will tell you where the doctor went to medical school, and whether the doctor is Board Certified. Board Certification means that the doctor spent extra time studying a specific area of medicine, after completing the minimal educational requirements to practice medicine, and then successfully passed the National Exam in that area. Board Certification is issued by the American Board of Medical Specialists. Their website is here ABMS.org. Unfortunately, I have found that the information provided on their site is less information than that provided at NYDoctorProfile.

Some other things I look for on NYDoctorProfile:

(a) Did the doctor attend a prestigious medical school?

(b) What year did the doctor graduate from school?

(c) Look at the Institutions listed under “Graduate Medical Training”. This is where the doctor completed her internships, residencies and perhaps fellowships. I prefer doctors who have successfully completed fellowships since it shows additional training that isn’t required, but in my view it is preferable if it’s in an area that I need medical treatment.

(d) Is he Board Certified in the area of medicine I need treatment in?

(e) Also, check if the doctor is "currently" certified in the area you need.

Note: Doctors who were certified decades ago often don’t need to be re-certified. However, the recent trend is to require doctors to re-certify in certain intervals that vary depending on the type of certification they have.

I once cross examined a defendant doctor whose lawyer told the jury that her client was a highly qualified, Board Certified, doctor who specialized in Gastroenterology, and therefore would not have missed the patient’s stomach cancer if it were present. This site allowed me to learn that while the doctor was previously certified, his certification had expired. Since it is unusual for a practicing doctor to let his certification expire I asked him about it in front of the jury. At first he tried to lie, but when I confronted him with the proof he was forced to confess that it “expired” because he failed his re-certification exam.

Upon further questioning it came out that doctors are encouraged to re-certified several years before their certification expires. In his case, we discovered that the doctor failed his re-certification exam several times both before, and after, the certification lapsed. His explanation for his multiple failing efforts was that it was a “difficult exam”. Of course! The exam is supposed to be difficult. That is exactly the point. Perhaps, they asked him some trick question like “As a gastroenterologist, how do you diagnose stomach cancer?”.

(f) Legal Actions: Despite the fact that I always check this section, I have found it to be useless simply because it seems as though it is never up to date. Occasionally it will list some verdicts or settlements against the doctor, but I can tell you from first hand experience that the majority of doctors who have been required to pay money for the injuries they caused to my clients rarely report this information, even though they are supposed to. Sometimes, you will find information under the box entitled NY Licensee Action, but I will tell you about another, and perhaps more reliable way, to perform a Medical License search in Step 2. I will also discuss how to find out how many times a doctor has been sued in Step 3.

(g) After you have read the doctor’s profile, make sure you copy down the doctor’s 6 digit NYS License. It is listed right under the doctor’s name when you click on the link for your doctor.

STEP 2. Has your doctor ever had any disciplinary action against him by the State of New York?

Using the Medical License Number you obtained above, go to the New York State website for Professional Medical Conduct and Physician Discipline. In New York, the Department of Education is responsible for granting doctors their medical license, and the Department of Health is responsible to taking it away. Here is the link for the NYS DOH.

In the box that says “License Number” type in the doctor’s license number and hit enter.

You may also do this search by name, however, I prefer to use the exact license number since there are so many physicians in this State and you don’t want to mix up two people with the same name.

If you doctor has had any action taken against her license it should appear here.

STEP 3. How many times has your doctor been sued?

The simple fact that a doctor has been sued may not mean that he committed malpractice, but you should consider that in the State of New York a party suing a doctor must obtain an opinion from another doctor who says that, in fact, this case should be brought. So if there are any lawsuits against a doctor, it means at a minimum that there is a patient, a lawyer, and another expert who feels that malpractice was committed in this case. Certainly if a doctor is the only defendant in an action, that is further evidence that his role was key to the harm the patient sustained.

Also, keep in mind that bringing a medical malpractice lawsuit is expensive and time consuming for the lawyer who brings the case for the injured patient. I have worked on both the plaintiff’s and defense side of the bar and I have not met a lawyer who was foolish enough to bring a medical malpractice suit that he/she didn’t truly believe in.

The most efficient way I have found to get information about prior lawsuits is to go to eLaw.com. You may have to create an account, but it only requires a valid email address. They have never sent me any spam, although I do subscribe to their paid service which allows for more efficient, but no more accurate, searches to be done. Once there, you can search for lawsuits by County using the doctors name (which you will put in the box that says “Defendant”) and by year. You may want to try some variations on the way you type the doctors name, such as last name only, last name before first name, using or omitting “M.D.”, “MD” or “Dr.” before or after the last name. A complete search should always include the County in which the doctor practices, not just the county where you reside.

STEP 4. Google

It seems obvious, but a Google search should also be performed on your doctor or hospital. I was surprised to learn through Google that Staten Island University Hospital was recently prosecuted by the State of New York for committing Insurance Fraud. The State found that SIUH was actually stealing money from the People of New York by over billing Medicaid. The State also uncovered the hospital was ding the same thing to the Federal Government with both Medicare and our Military's Health Insurance Program.

Apparently this was the biggest single fraud recovery in United States history against a medical institution. The hospital is now required to payback over $88 million of the money it stole to the State of New York and the Federal Government. Despite the severity of this scam, I could find no evidence that any of the personnel who conspired to commit this massive fraud did any jail time or paid any personal fines. This is a true sign of how greedy, immoral and corrupt hospitals and the healthcare system have become.

Other websites that list "patient reviews".

I often check them, but I do not find them to be particularly helpful. You will likely find that none, or only a couple of reviews are ever posted for your physician. To my knowledge there is no way of authenticating who the reviewer is. Therefore, I sometimes question both the good and bad reviews that I have seen. Perhaps as these sites mature, they will acquire a greater sampling of patients which may improve the reliability of their data.

Websites that charge you for information.

Some sites charge you to access information about your doctor. I have tried numerous sites over the years and have yet to find any which offer anything more than what you will find if you perform each Step of the free search I have listed for you above. In fact, since I have tried to direct you to the original source of information in each Step, you will likely find information that you would otherwise miss if you simply used one of the paid sites.

NOTE: What if you live outside of the State of New York and want information on Physician Disciplinary Action?

If you live outside of the State of New York, you may want to visit the following website that may be of some assistance to you DisciplinedDocs.com.