Page 23 - Anatomy of a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

SVMIC Anatomy of a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

Let’s look at a couple of other situations. What if a physician is

volunteering on Friday nights to provide onsite medical care to
the local high school football team’s players in the event of an

injury? What if a physician is covering for a partner and phones

in a prescription refill order for a patient she never saw? Or,
what if a patient presents to a physician’s office on only one

occasion, but never returns and never pays his bill?

The determination as to when the physician-patient
relationship is established is made by the trial judge (usually

because of a motion to dismiss filed by the defense). The trial

judge has discretion in making this determination. Each
determination is made on a case-by-case basis depending on

the various factors involved. It will probably come as no
surprise to you that in all of the mentioned scenarios, the trial

judges concluded that the physician-patient relationship had
been established.

Just as it is important to know when the relationship

commences, it is equally important to know when it ends. The
reason is because duty, once established, continues to exist

until the physician/patient relationship is terminated.

For the patient, it is easy to terminate the relationship – they

can stop coming to see the provider – and, after three years
generally, they can be considered a “new patient” if they return.

For the physician to terminate the patient, however, there are
steps that must be taken. First, the grounds for termination

cannot be for discriminatory reasons (race, creed, color, place

of origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, etc.).
Second, the physician may have a contract with a third-party

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