[rgejman]

I haven't done a deep dive here... but this makes no sense for multiple reasons.

1. It will have a chilling effect on physicians giving informal ("curbside") consults to colleagues. That leads to worse patient care overall. For instance if your doctor doesn't know what's up with you, he/she may not be able to curbside consult phone a colleague to get a 2nd opinion. This happens all the time in medicine and is one of the advantages of being at a medical center with lots of doctors: you can double check weird cases with your colleagues.

2. Direct admission to the inpatient ward are no longer common because outside physicians don't run hospitals anymore. Hospitals are run by teams who specialize in inpatient medicine -- and they almost always function best if the inpatient admission is preceded by an ED visit because the ED can rapidly get tests, imaging and collateral to figure out what's wrong—and if the problem needs inpatient management or not. Direct admissions, in bypassing this step, often put patients at risk by skipping the rapid information gathering process that the ED employs.

The "admitting privileges" they discuss in this article are a relatively meaningless and outdated practice in medicine today (with certain exceptions, such as obstetricians and some other surgeons).

[belorn]

The case is limited to hospitals which only admit patients through doctor recommendations, and where the consultation is about admitting the patient to that specific hospital. If a doctor doesn't know what's up they can curbside consult phone a colleague to get a 2nd opinion.

In my view, intention and context is what dictate most legal outcomes. That narrows decision usually down to very specific situations.

[rgejman]

Where does it say that? This NP was practicing independently and the Fairview hospital has an ED. There is no reason that if the NP was concerned she should not have sent the patient to the ED.

[PhasmaFelis]

Asssuming the article is accurate, I think you're mis-characterizing what happened here. Simon wasn't calling a colleague for a second opinion before making a decision; she decided Warren needed to be admitted, called a senior hospitalist to expedite that admission, and was clearly and repeatedly refused.

The OP's title "doctors can be sued by patients they don't treat" is not accurate. A better one might be "doctors can be sued by patients they refuse to allow treatment."

[rgejman]

This situation happens in EDs as well. For example: ED attending thinks admission is warranted but patient does not meet criteria (“please come see the patient because he/she looks worse than labs suggest”). This is why the ED exists and the correct move here should have been for the NP to send the patient to the ED for evaluation instead of relying on the opinion of an MD over the phone. The physician at the hospital should have suggested this as well—but to think that the MD is culpable for malpractice without laying eyes on the patient is lunacy.