How to file a complaint about your healthcare
http://www.patient-safety.com/complain.htm
How to file a complaint about your healthcare
Halfway down the page are links to information that will help you file a complaint. If you want to help other patients too, and wanted to tackle a cause to that end, a good one to take up would be bringing the public's and the government's attention to the fact that there is no reasonable complaint process to which patients can turn. Certainly not through agencies like state medical boards.
The American Iatrogenic Association says, "Keep in mind that state medical boards are generally comprised of physicians. As with all such agencies that regulate occupations, members of these boards feel a personal and professional kinship with those who they regulate. In other words, doctors do not regulate doctors effectively. Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, a state medical board does not operate in your interest."
A medical malpractice lawyer in Pennsylvania told us, "I’ve tried myself to go to state licensing boards. They are lazy, powerless, and have absolutely no incentive to police their own brothers or expose them when they’re all in it together. Justice doesn’t matter—only winning."
Rights without remedies are hollow.
- Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law Professor
Only once in a great while does a patient have a big-money, easy-win case that attracts a lawyer. The rest of the time, patients are dispensed with quite easily by the healthcare industry. The best a patient can do is file complaints with agencies that do not represent patients and that have complaint processes that are designed in ways that stymie and placate patients rather than that get to the bottom of problems. However, we still hope you will complain.
Most patients with legitimate complaints don't complain. One of the reasons is the difficulty of learning how and to whom to complain. Another is how unfriendly the process is. Even I didn't complain. I discovered that my dentist was doing unnecessary work (the dental hygienist warned me, a second opinion from another dentist confirmed it) and even I didn't file a complaint.
But we should. If enough complaints pile up about a specific practitioner, maybe someday someone will be helped by it.
However, just in trying to figure out how and to whom to complain one can smell a rat. Nothing about it feels as though there can be an upside to it. And, in fact, that almost always is the case. If your own misadventure in medicine impels you to try to do something to protect other patients, a good cause to take up would be trying to bring to the public's and the government's attention that there is no reasonable complaint process to which patients can turn.
In the meantime, here is information about how to file your complaint.
List of state medical boards to whom to complain
Medical complaint form
In addition to complaining to the state board, complain to the facility in which it happened. If you intend only to jot a note expressing your concerns, the above is all you need. If you want to do more than that (and you need to if you don't want it to be dismissed by the first person who reads it), what's below may be of help.
Instructions for writing complaints
Release of Medical Information, a legal form
Person to email with questions
In some cases you might want to complain to your insurance company as well. They have complaint departments and investigators. Also, many cities have a local guild to which area doctors belong. Such guilds chiefly serve other purposes, but can receive complaints. Although, like state medical boards, they lobby for doctors not patients. Your a sheep complaining to a community of wolves about one of their wolves.
Still, you should complain. It is rare for medical personnel to report problems, so patients have to.
Fees, attitude, rudeness, long waits in reception areas and such like are not matters for complaints to state boards or agencies. They won't even read complaints about those subjects. Which is another reason there should be an agency representing patients. If nothing else, such an agency could explain to patients how to respond to such problems without complaining.
You cannot be sued for filing a complaint
(although you can be blacklisted)
Complaints Instructions | Complaints Form | Release | State Boards
How to file a complaint about your healthcare
Halfway down the page are links to information that will help you file a complaint. If you want to help other patients too, and wanted to tackle a cause to that end, a good one to take up would be bringing the public's and the government's attention to the fact that there is no reasonable complaint process to which patients can turn. Certainly not through agencies like state medical boards.
The American Iatrogenic Association says, "Keep in mind that state medical boards are generally comprised of physicians. As with all such agencies that regulate occupations, members of these boards feel a personal and professional kinship with those who they regulate. In other words, doctors do not regulate doctors effectively. Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, a state medical board does not operate in your interest."
A medical malpractice lawyer in Pennsylvania told us, "I’ve tried myself to go to state licensing boards. They are lazy, powerless, and have absolutely no incentive to police their own brothers or expose them when they’re all in it together. Justice doesn’t matter—only winning."
Rights without remedies are hollow.
- Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law Professor
Only once in a great while does a patient have a big-money, easy-win case that attracts a lawyer. The rest of the time, patients are dispensed with quite easily by the healthcare industry. The best a patient can do is file complaints with agencies that do not represent patients and that have complaint processes that are designed in ways that stymie and placate patients rather than that get to the bottom of problems. However, we still hope you will complain.
Most patients with legitimate complaints don't complain. One of the reasons is the difficulty of learning how and to whom to complain. Another is how unfriendly the process is. Even I didn't complain. I discovered that my dentist was doing unnecessary work (the dental hygienist warned me, a second opinion from another dentist confirmed it) and even I didn't file a complaint.
But we should. If enough complaints pile up about a specific practitioner, maybe someday someone will be helped by it.
However, just in trying to figure out how and to whom to complain one can smell a rat. Nothing about it feels as though there can be an upside to it. And, in fact, that almost always is the case. If your own misadventure in medicine impels you to try to do something to protect other patients, a good cause to take up would be trying to bring to the public's and the government's attention that there is no reasonable complaint process to which patients can turn.
In the meantime, here is information about how to file your complaint.
List of state medical boards to whom to complain
Medical complaint form
In addition to complaining to the state board, complain to the facility in which it happened. If you intend only to jot a note expressing your concerns, the above is all you need. If you want to do more than that (and you need to if you don't want it to be dismissed by the first person who reads it), what's below may be of help.
Instructions for writing complaints
Release of Medical Information, a legal form
Person to email with questions
In some cases you might want to complain to your insurance company as well. They have complaint departments and investigators. Also, many cities have a local guild to which area doctors belong. Such guilds chiefly serve other purposes, but can receive complaints. Although, like state medical boards, they lobby for doctors not patients. Your a sheep complaining to a community of wolves about one of their wolves.
Still, you should complain. It is rare for medical personnel to report problems, so patients have to.
Fees, attitude, rudeness, long waits in reception areas and such like are not matters for complaints to state boards or agencies. They won't even read complaints about those subjects. Which is another reason there should be an agency representing patients. If nothing else, such an agency could explain to patients how to respond to such problems without complaining.
You cannot be sued for filing a complaint
(although you can be blacklisted)
Complaints Instructions | Complaints Form | Release | State Boards
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