Americans' collective mental health has faced some extraordinary challenges in recent years, making the therapeutic role of mental health practitioners more critical than ever. However, patients may file lawsuits against psychiatrists,
As a mental health professional, you need to understand why a patient or patient's representative has decided to sue you for malpractice, what kinds of transgressions may constitute mental health malpractice, and how to exercise your legal defense options. Start by examining the following four common types of claims.
1. Breach of Trust or Privacy
A breach of professional trust or patient privacy counts as grounds for a mental health malpractice lawsuit. Sexual harassment of a patient would obviously constitute such a professional breach, as would maintaining a close personal relationship with a patient under your care since it represents a conflict of professional interest.
Mental health professionals must adhere to the same standards of medical record privacy as other kinds of doctors. Although patients cannot sue individual doctors who violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), they can bring legal action against the offending doctor's workplace.
Patients who feel that a mental health professional has violated their HIPAA rights may file a lawsuit on the grounds that the practitioner violated one or more state laws. For example, a patient may sue a practitioner for breach of personal data, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, or data theft.
2. Patient Suicide or Murder
Mental health practitioners must often treat individuals who display suicidal tendencies, have attempted suicide in the past, or run an elevated risk for suicide. Despite a high standard of professional care, some of these patients may eventually succumb to their suicidal impulses and kill themselves.
In such cases, the patient's surviving loved ones may understandably try to blame the practitioner's treatment methods. They may argue that the practitioner failed to take the suicidal tendencies seriously, take the appropriate notes, assess the patient's everyday environment for risks, or discuss the issue with the patient's loved ones.
On the surface, disclosing a patient's problems with others without that patient's consent might seem like a violation of professional ethics. However, in the world of mental and behavioral health, doctors may choose to discuss specific elements of a case and recommended treatments when it involves possible self-harm.
The same flexibility holds true in cases where mental health patients have expressed the intention or desire to hurt or kill someone else. If a mental health practitioner knows about this situation and keeps quiet about it, the survivors of a murder victim may then try to sue the practitioner for not warning them or notifying the police.
3. Faulty Documentation
Failure to keep appropriate medical records can make you vulnerable to a mental health malpractice suit. If you have not maintained detailed patient records, you may have little evidence that you can use in your defense. The failure to keep adequate documents represents an ethical violation in itself.
You could also get into trouble for documenting the wrong kinds of data. Acceptable documentation typically includes details about a mental health patient's medical diagnosis, case history, treatment, suicide risk, and informed consent. Unacceptable records include interpersonal conflicts, the names of other individuals, and sexual details.
4. Faulty Diagnosis or Prescription
A faulty mental health diagnosis can prove just as disastrous for a patient (and for the doctor accused of making the error) as any other medical misdiagnosis. These mistakes may occur when the practitioner prescribes treatment based mainly on surface symptoms, such as a thyroid imbalance masquerading as depression.
A misdiagnosed condition can cause a patient to receive ineffective care for years. The mental health practitioner may compound the damage done by prescribing medications that could make the patient's mental or physical health even worse than before.
Any of these four infractions can provide plaintiffs with serious ammunition against a mental health professional whose patient suffered losses or even death as a result. If you face such accusations,
Spiga & Associates
can analyze your
case and provide you with skilled legal counsel. Contact our office today.