According to my mother, it sometimes isn’t enough to just say you’re sorry. In The Kansas City Star, Alan Bavley writes that, apparently, some physicians disagree. In particular, an organization called “Sorry Works!” thinks that apologies are powerful enough that they should provide doctors with immunity from some malpractice and disclosure rules. And, he writes, they’re campaigning to make it official.
…about five years ago, Sorry Works! changed from a coalition of doctors, lawyers, insurers and patient advocates. Now it’s a commercial consulting firm. Founder Doug Wojcieszak offers training to hospitals and doctors. And he has started crusading for new immunity for doctors who apologize.
According to Bavley, “Wojcieszak wants the (National Practitioner Data Bank) bank to keep malpractice payments secret in many cases when doctors make apologies and disclosures. Further, he wants doctors shielded from medical board discipline on these cases.”
Consumer’s Union and patient safety organizations have come out against the Sorry Works! campaign because, as Bavley writes, “proposal would give doctors who were going to settle a suit anyway an incentive to apologize just to keep it off their record.”
Under Sorry Works! three strikes rules, the vast majority of doctors (who face one or fewer malpractice suits during their career) would be able to stay clear of the data bank entirely, thus denying the public and medical boards access to crucial information that’s currently being made public.
William Heisel at ReportingOnHealth.org explains why Consumer’s Union and Robert Oshel, the designer of the National Practitioner Data Bank’s Public Use File are not in favor of the campaign .
