ozij wrote:In this case, the patient refused the doctor's care by disagreeing with his Rx...
Among other reasons, this is why I suggested that if Jeff is angry enough, he sit down with someone who is familiar with medical malpractice and the quirks in his local law because none of us know enough details to make a judgment call here on whether or not he can go after the guy.
Typically, if you refuse an Rx or a recommended course of treatment, the MD will note that your actions were taken "Against Medical Advice (AMA)." Among other things, this tends to protect them from malpractice if you go ahead and die from your condition. Did Jeff's doctor consider this AMA, note it in his record, and note that he was referring him someplace else because of the AMA? Got me. Does that offset firing him improperly, which it sounds like he did but we don't know for sure? I doubt it, but again, I don't know.
This is where an attorney, years of practice, and subpoenas come in. My gut is that the doctor lost his cool and did something really dumb and impulsive here to show how powerful and smart he was without being concerned about the longer term consequences, but I honestly don't know enough about this area of the law to say one way or the other.
I do know attorneys are often more expensive than doctors, malpractice attorneys often tend to be scum of the earth ambulance chaser types, and Jeff's relationship with the rest of his medical practitioners and such might not be worth risking if they happen to be friends with this guy. But, again, if Jeff is angry enough and thinks it might be worth it, this is where a sitdown with an attorney would help, since again my gut is that there's probably enough here to if nothing else scare the heck out of the MD. The attorney could also advise Jeff on what my I'd bet would be the proper immediate course of action to take next if he wants to go down that road, which is to make a sustained effort to find another sleep doctor ASAP who has an appointment available in the next 30 days and maintain detailed notes about the search. If Jeff can't find one, then I'd suspect the previous sleep doctor may have really opened up a can of worms - but again, this is why you hire someone for advice rather than take it off of an internet forum.
If not, just write up an angry anonymous review on yelp or such (with no personally identifiable details about the case so he can't go turn around and have one of those internet monitoring agencies some MDs use go after him) and feel better that way. If it were me, I'd probably do the latter course of action only because I've found it's just not worth the effort most times to be as much of a jerk to someone else as they are to you.
