Each individual hospital has its own strategy about when to discharge patients. Your health is not their only concern. A hospital is in business to make money, and they are also trying to maximize their own bottom line. Hospitals may also factor in whether they will be reimbursed by the insurance company for your care. They are under an immense amount of pressure from insurance companies not to keep patients in the hospital for longer than is necessary.
The hospital has an ongoing relationship with major insurance companies that provide them with the bulk of their revenues. They may not want to anger the insurance companies by submitting too many claims for lengthy hospital stays.
If you or a loved suffered an injury or worsening of symptoms by being discharged from the hospital prematurely, you should call a medical negligence lawyer. These personal injury attorneys know the law and will assess your case and help you understand your options.
When Hospitals Can Prematurely Discharge Patients
Being prematurely discharged from a hospital can occur in a number of circumstances, including:
- You were sent home from an emergency room before the physicians were able to fully diagnose or treat your condition. They may not have taken the time to order the appropriate tests that could have figured out what was wrong.
- You were discharged after surgery before your medical condition was fully stable.
- The doctor did not have all of your test results before they sent you home, and these test results would have revealed that you needed to stay in the hospital to be treated.
What Hospital Staff Needs to Check Before You Are Discharged
Even though you may also not want to spend any more time in the hospital than is necessary, it is also imperative that you are only discharged when it is warranted by your health and recovery. Letting you go from the hospital too soon can place your health at risk. There are reasons why you need to be monitored closely on an inpatient basis. The hospital staff may need to keep watch over the following:
- How a surgical incision is healing and whether you are at risk of a postoperative infection
- Whether your medical condition is stable
- How you are responding to your medications
- Your vital signs
- Whether you have resumed key bodily functions
Criteria the Hospital Must Apply Before Discharge
The hospital must apply a set of criteria before they decide to discharge you. Some milestones that you must meet before you can be sent home from the hospital include:
- You must have the capacity to manage your care at home
- You have a plan for follow-up care for your medical condition
- You do not need the more intensive level of care that is provided in an inpatient setting
- Your health is not in imminent danger
Financial considerations appear nowhere on this list, but hospitals often allow them to influence a decision about when they will send you home. In some cases, the hospital may send you home before your medical condition supports it, either leading you to be readmitted after you have been discharged or even potentially setting you up for even more serious complications.
Premature Discharge Can Be Considered Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice can cover any aspect of the care you have received when you are in a hospital, from the time that you walk into the facility until when you are sent home. Even the decision to send you home is one that requires the attending physician and your treating doctor to act reasonably. If they discharge you before you are ready to leave the hospital or surgical center, it can still be medical malpractice.
A physician or hospital commits medical malpractice when they do something that is unreasonable under the circumstances. A reasonable physician will keep you in the facility until you are medically able to be discharged. Even though some postoperative complications are unavoidable, the reasonable physician will at least need to be satisfied that you are no longer experiencing serious complications, and you will not be placed in any danger if you were sent home or to a rehabilitation facility.
Challenges in a Premature Discharge Medical Malpractice Case
If you sue for medical malpractice for premature discharge, you may run into a number of challenges. One of the elements of negligence is that you prove that the defendant’s conduct was the cause of your injuries. The medical provider may argue that you would have suffered the same complications regardless of whether you were at home or in the hospital. Thus, they may claim that any premature discharge had nothing to do with your current medical condition.
You will need to prove that your current health condition would not have happened if you were kept in the medical facility for longer. Alternatively, you will have to show that you had a medical condition at the time you were discharged that grew worse when you were at home because you did not have access to inpatient treatment, which could have managed the situation. These are no easy tasks, and you will need the help of a medical malpractice attorney.
How to Prove a Premature Discharge Medical Malpractice Case
You should always work with a medical malpractice lawyer to prove that the hospital was negligent in sending you home before you were ready. Your medical malpractice lawyer will work with expert witnesses to recreate the care that you received when you were in a hospital or surgical facility. They will have access to your medical records and test results that the treating doctor would have been looking at when they decided that you were ready to be sent home.
The expert witness will give their opinion about what a reasonable doctor would have done under the circumstances and whether you should have been sent home. Of course, doctors have the ability to apply their own medical judgment and experience, but their decisions must be ones that reasonable doctors would make under the circumstances. There is room for interpretation in medical malpractice cases. However, a decision to send you home when you were clearly not ready to be discharged can still be considered malpractice when it was something the ordinary doctor would not have done.
A Medical Malpractice Attorney is Standing by
If you or a loved one has suffered an injury from a medical provider, you should contact a McLean injury attorney as soon as possible. They will assess your case and discuss your next steps.