The ideal hospital stay will result in your ailment being treated by an attentive staff. Nurses will provide immediate support for any discomfort. Your doctors and surgeons will check on you to make sure your post-op recovery is going as planned. Despite the circumstances that brought you there, you’ll be cared for by a group of people you hope you never have to see again.
Unfortunately, if you are given poor discharge instructions, you could find yourself right back at that hospital. If that happens and you suffer harm, you may be able to hold that hospital liable. Filing a medical malpractice claim against a hospital is extremely challenging. You’ll be going up against an institution with a legion of lawyers. That is why you need to have a strong Philadelphia medical malpractice attorney in your corner.
An experienced attorney can help determine if your case has merit. That will begin with a thorough review of your records, beginning with the discharge instructions.
What Should Be Included in Hospital Discharge Instructions
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) points to a well-known study that found nearly 1 in 5 patients suffered an adverse event within three weeks of leaving the hospital. Most of those events could have been prevented or made less severe. To some patients, the discharge instructions are like the “fine print” in a contract. They seem boilerplate, and you might not think you have to read them if your nurse or doctor tells you what to expect.
Federal regulations establish discharge planning requirements for hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. It is important to listen to the verbal discharge instructions and follow the written discharge instructions. If there is a gap in those instructions, it could lead to harm.
Those regulations don’t dictate every line of your paperwork, but here’s what your discharge instructions should generally include:
- Diagnoses and condition summary: This should be a clear, plain-language description of why you were hospitalized and what your primary diagnosis was.
- Medication list: You need a complete list of your home medications. You also need instructions detailing when to restart your medications, what dosage changes were made, and whether you have new prescriptions, with clear instructions on how and when to take them.
- Activity and diet restrictions: You will need guidance on physical activity levels, such as lifting heavy objects, walking upstairs, or driving. You also need any dietary rules or restrictions.
- Wound and device care: You should be provided with step-by-step instructions for changing bandages, caring for surgical incisions, managing drains or tubes, or operating home medical equipment.
- Warning signs and red flags: Your discharge instructions should also include specific symptoms that require calling a doctor or returning to the emergency room.
- Emergency and support contacts: You should be provided with direct phone numbers for the discharging physician, nurse coordinator, or on-call service.
Ideally, if anything is unclear in your discharge instructions, you should ask follow-up questions before you leave. Medicare publishes a discharge planning checklist that you and a family member can work through with the staff.
Who Can Be Held Responsible for Inadequate Discharge Instructions?
When discharge instructions cause you harm, you may be entitled to seek a remedy. That means identifying who should be held liable for those instructions. Depending on the circumstances, the potentially liable parties can include the following:
- The hospital
- Treating physicians
- Nurses
- Any other healthcare professionals involved in discharge planning
A hospital can be held directly liable for its own failures, such as insufficient staff training or poor coordination of post-hospital care that contributed to your harm. The hospital may also be vicariously liable for negligent actions committed by employees within the scope of their employment.
However, liability for independently contracted physicians and other nonemployees can be more complicated.
Common Examples of Negligent Discharge Instructions
Hospitals have a responsibility to provide patients with clear, accurate, and appropriate discharge instructions to help them recover safely. When they fail in that obligation, you could experience a preventable complication that worsens your medical condition. That can lead to a readmission. If you’re filing this type of claim, you need to identify what was missing from the discharge instructions. Those errors can include the following:
Medication Errors
The instructions might give you the wrong medication dosage or fail to explain potential drug interactions. If you’re not informed about which medications to stop taking, it can result in overdoses, adverse reactions, or other serious complications.
Failure To Explain Warning Signs
You need to fully understand which symptoms may indicate a medical emergency. Your instructions should clearly explain the warning signs of infections, blood clots, internal bleeding, or other complications that require immediate medical attention.
Missing Follow-Up Care Instructions
Hospitals can be considered negligent if they fail to inform patients about necessary follow-up appointments, diagnostic testing, or specialist consultations. That neglect can result in delayed diagnoses or worsening conditions.
Inadequate Wound Care Guidance
If you are recovering from surgery or injuries, you need appropriate instructions for cleaning wounds, changing dressings, and preventing infections. Incomplete guidance can trigger serious infections or delayed healing.
Unclear Physical Activity Restrictions
You need clear instructions about any potential restrictions on lifting, driving, exercising, or returning to work. Without that, you could face unnecessary risks, including reopening surgical wounds or causing additional injuries.
Failure To Address Communication Barriers
If the hospital provides instructions in a language the patient does not understand, uses confusing medical terminology, or fails to accommodate any cognitive or physical limitations, it can lead to health complications. That kind of failure can support a negligence claim.
Conflicting or Incomplete Discharge Paperwork
You might get written instructions that contradict verbal guidance. Those instructions could also omit important treatment details or contain outdated information, causing you to make a mistake during your recovery.
Consulting a Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Keep in mind that instructions you found confusing are not automatically negligent. If those instructions meet the standard of care the hospital is obligated to provide, you might not have a viable claim. That is why your situation needs to be reviewed by an appropriate licensed medical professional. Pennsylvania requires a certificate of merit, backed by that professional’s written statement, to be filed with your complaint or within 60 days after it. Without one, your claim can be thrown out before it starts.
Finding that professional and gathering all the relevant supporting evidence might seem overwhelming. That is why you need to speak with our legal team at Shrager, Sachs, & Blanco.
We have decades of combined experience helping Philly residents with medical malpractice claims. We also have a network of medical professionals that we can call on to review your claim. Our goal is to provide you with honest feedback about the merits of your case. We won’t move forward unless we believe your claim has merit. If you believe that your discharge instructions caused you harm, you can call to schedule a free consultation. Let’s find out together if there are legitimate claims of negligence.
