Who’s-Suing-Whom Alert Prescribed for Physicians

Declaring that the threat of malpractice claims “makes it very difficult to practice medicine,” the Los Angeles County Medical Assn. recommended Monday that doctors subscribe to a private computerized information service that identifies patients who have filed lawsuits.

Dr. Mitchell S. Karlan, president of the association, blamed the need for the program on “parasitical professional plaintiffs” more interested in “developing a basis for a medical malpractice lawsuit than in seeking treatment for a medical problem.”

Could Refuse to Treat

Karlan said physicians could refuse to treat a “litigation-prone” patient except in an emergency or choose to ignore the information. He said the service’s major function was to “raise an alert.”

“This is not a secret or clandestine program,” Karlan said. “We called a news conference so that patients will now know this is going on.”

The service, named Physician’s Alert, will be able to screen a computerized registry of 1.3 million civil lawsuits filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles and Orange counties since 1976 and tell, “usually within 30 seconds,” if a patient’s name is listed, according to Michael G. Eckstein, president of the Chicago-based company. Physician’s Alert offers a similar service in Detroit and Chicago.

No Desire Expressed

While the service will report Orange County as well as Los Angeles County lawsuits, the president of the Orange County Medical Assn. said his members have not expressed a desire for such a service.

“In fact, this is the first I’ve heard of it,” said Dr. Frank L. Amato, a Fullerton family practice physician. “I’ve never even heard of Physician’s Alert before.

“I really don’t know whether it’s needed here. Obviously they must have had a problem in L.A. County that prompted this. . . . It’s probably not a bad idea, if indeed you have a community where that’s a common problem. To my knowledge right now, we (in Orange County) have not even entertained that as a problem.”

According to Eckstein, the physician has “no legal responsibility to tell patients he is checking up on them.” He said the service would help establish a “candid atmosphere.”

These claims were disputed by an expert in medical ethics, Dr. Bernard Lo of the UC Medical Center in San Francisco.

“The best defense against a lawsuit is a good doctor-patient relationship, and that could be undermined by the appearance that doctors are more concerned about their own liability than helping the patient,” he said in a telephone interview.

“If a patient comes to me after seeing several doctors and is obviously dissatisfied with their care,” Lo said, “it would seem more natural to ask them directly about lawsuits than to go to the back room and make a phone call.”