If you haven't seen JPFO's alert RE: "Is Your Doctor a Spy?" Let me know.
The next two articles by the same Joe Horn are very good advice to Doctors.
=====
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/newsarchives/XcNewsPlus.asp?cmd=view&articlei
d=452
Risk Management Advice to Physicians and Their Insurers: Don't Borrow Trouble
Date: 8/20/2000 4:33:00 PM
Written By: Joe Horn
Risk Management Advice to Physicians and their Insurers:
Don't Borrow Trouble
By Joe Horn
Since retiring and leaving Law Enforcement, I have been active in Risk
Management consulting, a field that has grown rapidly throughout every
industry over the past 20 years. Some of the companies I have consulted to
for risk management include IBM, Gates Lear jet, National Semiconductor, and
Pinkerton International Protection Services.
One of the best games in town is litigation, and litigating against
physicians is even more popular than suing gun manufacturers. Physicians and
their malpractice insurance carriers are well aware that litigators are
constantly looking for new opportunities to sue. Let's talk about one of
those new areas of exposure.
Nowadays, many physicians and other health care providers are engaging in
the very risky, well intentioned, but naive and politically inspired
business of asking their patients about ownership, maintenance and storage
of firearms in the home. Some could argue that this is a "boundary
violation," and it probably is, but there is another very valid reason why
these professionals should NOT engage in this practice -- MASSIVE LIABILITY.
Physicians are licensed and certified in the practice of medicine, the
treatment of illnesses and injuries, and in preventative activities. They
may advise or answer questions about those issues. However, when physicians
give advice about firearms safety in the home, without certification in that
field, and without physically INSPECTING that particular home and those
particular firearms, they are functioning outside the practice of medicine.
Furthermore, if they fail to review the gamut of safety issues in the home,
such as those relating to electricity, drains, disposals, compactors, garage
doors, driveway safety, pool safety, pool fence codes and special locks for
pool gates, auto safety, gas, broken glass, stored cleaning chemicals,
buckets, toilets, sharp objects, garden tools, home tools, power tools,
lawnmowers, lawn chemicals, scissors, needles, forks, knives, and on and on,
well, you get the drift. A litigator could easily accuse that physician of
being NEGLIGENT for not covering whichever one of those things that
ultimately led to the death or injury of a child or any one in the family or
even a visitor to the patient's home.
To engage in Home Safety Counseling without certification, license or formal
training in Risk Management and to concentrate on one small politically
correct area, i.e., firearms to the neglect of ALL of the other safety
issues in the modern home, is to invite a lawsuit because the safety
counselor Knew, Could have known or SHOULD have known that there were other
dangers to the occupants of that house more immediate than firearms. Things
like swimming pools, buckets of water, and chemicals in homes are involved
in the death or injury of many more children than accidental firearms
discharge [ Source: CDC.] Firearms are a statistically small, nearly
negligible fraction of the items involved in home injuries. Physicians
SHOULD know that. So, why all of a sudden do some physicians consider
themselves to be firearms safety experts? Where is their concern for all the
other safety issues that they DON'T cover with their patients?
Once physicians start down this path of home safety counseling, they are
completely on their own. A review of their medical malpractice insurance
will reveal that if they engage in an activity for which they are not
certified, the carrier will not cover them if (or when) they get sued.
Consider a physician asking the following questions of his or her
malpractice insurance carrier:
One of my patients is suing me for NOT warning them that furniture polish
was poisonous and their child drank it and died. I only warned them about
firearms, drugs and alcohol. Am I covered for counseling patients about
firearms safety while not mentioning and giving preventative advice about
all the other dangers in the home, and doing so without formal training or
certification in any aspect of home safety risk management? You know their
answer.
How much training and certification do I need to become a Home Safety Expert
Doctor? They will tell you that you are either a pediatrician or you are the
National Safety Council. But, you don't have certification to do the
National Safety Council's job for them.
Homeowners and parents are civilly or criminally responsible for the safety
or lack thereof in their homes. My advice to physicians is to not borrow
trouble by presuming to be able to dispense safety advice outside your area
of expertise: the practice of medicine. Your insurance carrier will love you
if you simply treat injuries and illnesses, dispense advice on how to care
for sick or injured persons, manage sanitation problems and try to prevent
disease, but stay out of the Risk Management business unless you are trained
and certified to do it.
(c) 2000
Joe Horn
6th Mesa Risk Management,
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Retired
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Joe Horn is a member of Second Amendment Police Department, who is now
collaborating and strategizing from time to time with Doctors for Sensible
Gun Laws.
The next two articles by the same Joe Horn are very good advice to Doctors.
=====
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/newsarchives/XcNewsPlus.asp?cmd=view&articlei
d=452
Risk Management Advice to Physicians and Their Insurers: Don't Borrow Trouble
Date: 8/20/2000 4:33:00 PM
Written By: Joe Horn
Risk Management Advice to Physicians and their Insurers:
Don't Borrow Trouble
By Joe Horn
Since retiring and leaving Law Enforcement, I have been active in Risk
Management consulting, a field that has grown rapidly throughout every
industry over the past 20 years. Some of the companies I have consulted to
for risk management include IBM, Gates Lear jet, National Semiconductor, and
Pinkerton International Protection Services.
One of the best games in town is litigation, and litigating against
physicians is even more popular than suing gun manufacturers. Physicians and
their malpractice insurance carriers are well aware that litigators are
constantly looking for new opportunities to sue. Let's talk about one of
those new areas of exposure.
Nowadays, many physicians and other health care providers are engaging in
the very risky, well intentioned, but naive and politically inspired
business of asking their patients about ownership, maintenance and storage
of firearms in the home. Some could argue that this is a "boundary
violation," and it probably is, but there is another very valid reason why
these professionals should NOT engage in this practice -- MASSIVE LIABILITY.
Physicians are licensed and certified in the practice of medicine, the
treatment of illnesses and injuries, and in preventative activities. They
may advise or answer questions about those issues. However, when physicians
give advice about firearms safety in the home, without certification in that
field, and without physically INSPECTING that particular home and those
particular firearms, they are functioning outside the practice of medicine.
Furthermore, if they fail to review the gamut of safety issues in the home,
such as those relating to electricity, drains, disposals, compactors, garage
doors, driveway safety, pool safety, pool fence codes and special locks for
pool gates, auto safety, gas, broken glass, stored cleaning chemicals,
buckets, toilets, sharp objects, garden tools, home tools, power tools,
lawnmowers, lawn chemicals, scissors, needles, forks, knives, and on and on,
well, you get the drift. A litigator could easily accuse that physician of
being NEGLIGENT for not covering whichever one of those things that
ultimately led to the death or injury of a child or any one in the family or
even a visitor to the patient's home.
To engage in Home Safety Counseling without certification, license or formal
training in Risk Management and to concentrate on one small politically
correct area, i.e., firearms to the neglect of ALL of the other safety
issues in the modern home, is to invite a lawsuit because the safety
counselor Knew, Could have known or SHOULD have known that there were other
dangers to the occupants of that house more immediate than firearms. Things
like swimming pools, buckets of water, and chemicals in homes are involved
in the death or injury of many more children than accidental firearms
discharge [ Source: CDC.] Firearms are a statistically small, nearly
negligible fraction of the items involved in home injuries. Physicians
SHOULD know that. So, why all of a sudden do some physicians consider
themselves to be firearms safety experts? Where is their concern for all the
other safety issues that they DON'T cover with their patients?
Once physicians start down this path of home safety counseling, they are
completely on their own. A review of their medical malpractice insurance
will reveal that if they engage in an activity for which they are not
certified, the carrier will not cover them if (or when) they get sued.
Consider a physician asking the following questions of his or her
malpractice insurance carrier:
One of my patients is suing me for NOT warning them that furniture polish
was poisonous and their child drank it and died. I only warned them about
firearms, drugs and alcohol. Am I covered for counseling patients about
firearms safety while not mentioning and giving preventative advice about
all the other dangers in the home, and doing so without formal training or
certification in any aspect of home safety risk management? You know their
answer.
How much training and certification do I need to become a Home Safety Expert
Doctor? They will tell you that you are either a pediatrician or you are the
National Safety Council. But, you don't have certification to do the
National Safety Council's job for them.
Homeowners and parents are civilly or criminally responsible for the safety
or lack thereof in their homes. My advice to physicians is to not borrow
trouble by presuming to be able to dispense safety advice outside your area
of expertise: the practice of medicine. Your insurance carrier will love you
if you simply treat injuries and illnesses, dispense advice on how to care
for sick or injured persons, manage sanitation problems and try to prevent
disease, but stay out of the Risk Management business unless you are trained
and certified to do it.
(c) 2000
Joe Horn
6th Mesa Risk Management,
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Retired
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Joe Horn is a member of Second Amendment Police Department, who is now
collaborating and strategizing from time to time with Doctors for Sensible
Gun Laws.
