Suitophobia

“I’m Doctor Oppenheim….”

“Welcome to the Intercontinental, Doctor Oppenheim. Are you checking in?”

Damn. Another employee who doesn’t recognize me. This happens in hotels that have called for decades. Who knows what she’ll tell a guest who asks for help?

I don’t market myself, but years ago I decided to hand a copy of my latest book to general managers of my regular hotels and explain, modestly, that writing allowed me free time to serve their guests. They listened politely, made flattering comments, and went back to work. It was clear many had no idea who I was. My tenth visit, to the downtown Hilton, was my last. 

“What do you mean ‘serve our guests?’” snapped the GM. “We don’t have a hotel doctor. We don’t want a hotel doctor. You’re going to get a letter from our lawyer!” He snatched my book and marched off. I was a familiar figure to Hilton staff, having made over 100 visits, but I never made another.

That was my first encounter with the epidemic of suitophobia that rages among hotel managers, compelling them to forbid staff from helping sick guests except by getting them off the premises. At any given time, about ten percent are affected. Most recover after a few years, but in the meantime both guests and hotel doctors suffer. I made over 600 visits to the J.W. Marriott in Century City before calls abruptly stopped. I learned the reason from concierges who swore me to secrecy when they snuck me in to see a particularly demanding guest.  

Fear

Leafing through mail revealed a letter from a law office. I broke into a sweat and then calmed myself. Malpractice suit announcements rarely arrive in ordinary US mail. Sure enough it was simple request for records. Someone was having trouble with an insurance company. I get these once or twice a year, and they never fail to upset me.

Whether they win or lose, sued doctors rarely pay a penny, but it’s a horrible experience which they all dread. Doctors worry if something is not going right – say a patient who should get well is not getting well or seems dissatisfied. We all want to do better, but never absent from a doctor’s thoughts is that he doesn’t want to be sued.

You may wonder about the odds that this will happen. The answer: a hundred percent. Five percent of American family doctors are sued each year. The highest risk specialties are neurosurgery and cardiac surgery: 19 per cent sued each year.

To make sure your doctor has never been sued, find one who has just entered practice. If you want to investigate, most states make it easy. You can look me up at the California Medical Board site by entering my name. Feel free to do so. I’m clean.

But state boards are not terribly efficient, and many have time limits – say ten years – after which they drop the information.

Every bad thing that’s happened to a doctor is in the National Practitioners Data Bank in Washington. Hospitals and clinics query it when they’re checking out a doctor. When they don’t, you often read the results on the front page. 

The NPDB is off limits to the general public. Activists yearn to change this, but every professional organization would fall upon any legislator who agreed.