A Preoperative Medical History and Physical Should Not Be a Requirement for All Cataract Patients.

Cataract surgery poses minimal systemic medical risk, yet a preoperative general medical history and physical is required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other regulatory bodies within 1 month of cataract surgery. Based on prior research and practice guidelines, there is professional consensus that preoperative laboratory testing confers no benefit when routinely performed on cataract surgical patients. Such testing remains commonplace. Although not yet tested in a large-scale trial, there is also no evidence that the required history and physical yields a benefit for most cataract surgical patients above and beyond the screening performed by anesthesia staff on the day of surgery. We propose that the minority of patients who might benefit from a preoperative medical history and physical can be identified prospectively. Regulatory agencies should not constrain medical practice in a way that adds enormous cost and patient burden in the absence of value.

Medicolegal pitfalls of cataract surgery.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To provide a general overview of medicolegal issues that may arise before, during, and after cataract surgery. RECENT FINDINGS: The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has designated ophthalmology as an auditing target, an unusual step to take for an entire specialty. Ongoing False Claims Act litigation may provide greater clarity on billing Medicare for a premium intraocular lens patient's return to the operating room and charging for an intervening exam when performing cataract surgery on both eyes. SUMMARY: Ophthalmologists should continue to follow basic principles that help decrease medicolegal risk. These include a thorough informed consent discussion before surgery and accurate and contemporaneous documentation. When complications arise, surgeons should handle them in accordance with best practices and refer patients appropriately. Problems can arise from inattentive postoperative care, so ophthalmologists should train staff members on handling of patient calls. Implementing safety protocols for intraocular lens implantation and asking for legal advice when considering certain types of financial arrangements are also prudent. Cataract surgeons also should follow guidelines for billing noncovered services carefully.

Objective visual field determination in forensic ophthalmology with an optimized 4-channel multifocal VEP perimetry system: a case report of a patient with retinitis pigmentosa.

We present the case of a 59-year-old male patient with progressive vision impairment and consecutive visual field narrowing ("tunnel view") for 7 years and a known retinitis pigmentosa for 5 years. The remaining Goldmann perimetric visual field at time reported was less than 5°. A request for blindness-related social benefits was rejected because an ophthalmologic expert assessment suggested malingering. This prompted us to assess an objective determination of the visual field using multifocal VEPs. Objective visual field recordings were performed with a four-channel multifocal VEP-perimeter using 58 stimulus fields (pattern reversal dartboard stimulus configuration). The correlated signal data were processed using an off-line method. At each field, the recording from the channel with the maximal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was retained, thus resulting in an SNR optimized virtual recording. Analysis of VEP signals was performed for each single field and concentric rings and compared to an average response measured in five healthy subjects. Substantial VEP responses could be identified in three fields within the innermost ring (eccentricity, 1.7°) for both eyes, although SNR was generally low. More eccentric stimuli did not elicit reliable VEP responses. The mfVEP recording was correlated with perimetric visual field data. The current SNR optimization by using the channel with the largest SNR provides a good method to extract useful data from recordings and may be appropriate for the use in forensic ophthalmology.

Causes of cataract surgery malpractice claims in England 1995-2008.

AIMS: To analyse the causes of malpractice claims related specifically to cataract surgery in the National Health Service in England from 1995 to 2008. METHODS: All the malpractice claims related to cataract surgery from 1995 to 2008 from the National Health Service Litigation Authority were analysed. Claims were classified according to causative problem. Total numbers of claims, total value of damages, mean level damages and paid:closed ratio (a measure of the likelihood of a claim resulting in payment of damages) were determined for each cause. RESULTS: Over the 14-year period, there were 324 cataract surgery claims with total damages of £ 1.97 million and mean damages for a paid claim of £ 19,900. Negligent surgery (including posterior capsule tear and dropped nucleus) was the most frequent cause for claims, while reduced vision accounted for the highest total and mean damages. Claims relating to biometry errors/wrong intraocular lens power were the second most frequent cause of claims and result in payment of damages in 62% of closed cases. The claims with the highest paid:closed ratio were inadequate anaesthetic (75%) and complications of anaesthetic injections including globe perforation (67%). CONCLUSIONS: Claims from cataract surgery in the NHS are extremely infrequent. Consent, though essential, may not prevent a claim arising or resulting in damages. Refractive accuracy has significant medicolegal impact. Endophthalmitis can lead to successful claims if there is delay in diagnosis. Claims relating to inadequate anaesthesia or anaesthetic injection complications are particularly hard to defend.

[Ophthalmology complaints in Spain]. / Denuncias en oftalmología, en España.

PURPOSE: We reviewed 90 complaints for allegedly incorrect ophthalmic procedures. Most of these complaints (33%) were related to cataract and refractive surgery (18%). In third position in terms of frequency (14%) were complaints concerning oculoplastic surgery and in fourth position were complaints related to retinal detachment (13%). This was followed by a miscellaneous group, which represented 10% of complaints. About 9% of complaints were related to emergency ophthalmic procedures, while just 3% of complaints were related to glaucoma. METHODS: We analysed within each subgroup the characteristics of the claims; the information given to the patient, those cases in which there existed grounds for considering the ophthalmologist's performance as being incorrect, and court orders that were adopted. RESULTS: The most common groups were cataract and refractive surgery, which together represented more than a half of the complaints. We found in 26% of cases, reports from other doctors criticizing the professional performance a posteriori of an accused ophthalmologist, incorrect or incomplete documents of informed consent, as well as patients asserting that their surgeons made them promises of results, or minimized risks about the proposed operation. CONCLUSIONS: In the great majority of cases, the claim was settled due to a characteristic complication inherent in the surgical technique and present in the document of informed consent signed by the patient. We also observed a minority of cases, particularly in refractive surgery, in which a foreseeable and avoidable complication related to incorrectly prescribed surgical techniques was produced. In these exceptional cases, expert evidence is usually unfavorable and charges are typically laid. It is probable that improved information for patients would reduce the number of these claims.

[Prevention of bacterial endophthalmitis after cataract surgery in adults]. / Prévention des endophtalmies bactériennes après opération de la cataracte de l'adulte.

Technical progress in cataract surgery has led to the phacoemulsification of the eye lens by ultrasound followed by the intraocular lens implantation. In spite of rigorous preventive hygiene and sterilization measures taken before, during and after the operation, two clinical forms of endophthalmitis seriously threaten vision in the operated eye: externally induced endophthalmitis, specifically with pyocyanic bacillus, which often follows the irregular use of reuseable tubings and internally induced endophthalmitis due to the inevitable penetration during the intraocular operation of conjunctival micro-organisms especially staphylococci. A zero-risk level is non-existent and it would be unjust to hold the ophthalmologist responsible for it, when he has done everything possible to reduce the risk. The question of bacteriological examinations, the problem of antibioprophylaxis, and the danger of the reuseable tubings and of the ambulatory surgery, concerning at-risk patients, are discussed in this paper.