In a society marked by increasing litigation, Dr. Alexander Lampone believes there should be more legal education and counseling available to the public. For this reason, the Palisadian has developed four interrelated businesses from his careers in medicine and law, which he manages from his Monument office. Lampone began to combine his skills due to some unexpected circumstances in the mid-’90s. As medical director of St. John’s Emergency Room from 1979 to 1994, he established and directed multi-hospital physician groups, allowing doctors to keep their private practices but also work together. His network of more than 2,000 physician practices provided medical care to emergency, acute care, occupational medicine and primary care patients at medical centers throughout Southern California. Yet Lampone could sense the medical profession was changing in the early ’90s, when he attended Loyola Law School while maintaining his full-time position at St. John’s. ‘I could see that being a good doctor wasn’t going to be enough’patient care was moving towards cost-effective care so that doctors were in conflict with their patients. The satisfaction and income had gone from being a doctor; I could see that it wasn’t going to be what it had been for me.’ Lampone’s feeling that medicine was being dehumanized and devalued led him to pursue law in order to ‘be a better physician executive.’ Though he never intended to practice law, he fell into it by default when his medical practice suddenly dissolved in 1994, as a result of the earthquake that destroyed St. John’s ER. ‘The earthquake set in motion a number of events,’ says Lampone, who had earned his medical degree from his hometown school, Medical College of Wisconsin (formerly Marquette). ‘I couldn’t keep doctors together without a place to practice, and I didn’t want to start all over, so I got involved in litigation involuntarily.’ Handling mostly medical malpractice cases, Lampone worked as a courtroom attorney from about 1995 to 1999, realizing after a couple of years that ‘I didn’t like the headaches of litigation.’ What he missed about medicine was ‘collaborating and solving a patient’s problem.’ Since he already knew about 300-plus doctors in Southern California, and felt he was qualified in assessing patients’ needs and organizing teams of physicians to care for patients, he thought he would be good at the medical side of litigation. He would review medical cases and interface between medical experts and lawyers by ‘quarterbacking, triaging and assessing.’ Thus, Lampone’s medical-legal consulting business was born in 1999. ‘My only criteria is that I want to be on the right side of the case,’ says Lampone, who handles medical malpractice, personal injury, disability and medical insurance cases. ‘I use the ‘Oh-My-God’ standard to choose cases that have some merit.’ In selecting clients, he first does a screening, or review of the case. If he decides to take it on, he completes a detailed medical and legal analysis in which he writes comments about what the system at fault failed to do or see, followed by a report, or evaluation, based on his 20 years of medical experience. Then, he puts experts on the case. Lampone’s expertise gives him the ability to anticipate how the other side would react, and he admits that he rejects about 90 percent of cases, which end up settling. ‘I’ve saved thousands of cases from being filed,’ he says. ‘People often equate bad outcomes with malpractice, but they’re not going to find justice and satisfaction in litigation. If we can tell them why someone died or why something went wrong, it puts a period on grief and uncertainty. We’d like to avoid litigation.’ About 30 percent of Lampone’s cases fall in California and 70 percent are out of state. While he consults about half the time for the plaintiff and half for the defense, he says that most of his plaintiff cases are out of state. A case review usually costs about $500-$600/hr. but he will sometimes look at a case pro bono or charge a smaller fee. In the last few years, Lampone has extended his multidisciplinary training to California’s workers’ compensation insurance system, developing a business called Work Comp Solutions (www.workcompsolutions.com), to help bring over-utilization and ineffective care cases to closure, and reduce medical costs. ‘After the Internet crash in 2000 and 9/11, I was contacted by insurance companies getting killed with medical bills,’ Lampone says. ‘Physicians were over-utilizing’performing surgeries for all reasons’and I wanted to go after the accuracy and truth of these medical issues, legally.’ Lampone calls the new workers’ compensation insurance reform ‘a 21st century misnomer,’ since he believes doctors will be receiving the compensation and there will only be short-term relief. ‘It’s a pipe dream to save 17 million people. Instead of cramming in a reform, the system should be redesigned to promote safe workplaces, group health insurance and disability coverage’that way, employers would get hit big if they were really negligent.’ Lampone’s wife, DiAnn (Nycky), is one of the principals of Work Comp Solutions. She was the first nursing professional to receive a master’s degree in occupational health administration from the UCLA School of Nursing, and has more than 20 years of experience as a clinical nurse and legal nurse consultant. She is also the co-founder of Employers’ Medical Coalition, an employer-aligned workers’ compensation consulting company. In addition to his two established medical-legal businesses, Lampone works part-time as a medical consultant for complex medical problems. Meanwhile, he is introducing a fourth, medical-legal advocates business to ‘advise, educate, counsel and facilitate patient care.’ What this new monitoring service does is put the perspective of looking back on medical errors in real time. Clients can contact Lampone’s team of experienced, board-certified doctors and nurses 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For example, if your child goes into the hospital with an injury or illness, Lampone’s consultants will interface and interact with the doctors treating your child. ‘We can negotiate the best kind of care for the child because we are able to talk with doctors in a reasonable fashion about what’s in the patient’s best interest,’ Lampone says. ‘Most hospitals are receptive because medical errors are damaging, costly and tragic.’ For a monthly fee, the medical-legal advocates will advise clients, arrange second opinions and expedite transfer to a center of excellence, such as the Mayo Clinic, if need be. ‘There is an epidemic of medical errors,’ Lampone says. ‘We’d like to prevent medical errors by detecting them and intervening before patients suffer damage or death. By picking up early indicators of medical errors, we can redirect or counsel people in real time. We’re a safety net.’ The Lampones have lived in the Palisades since 1982 with their son, Nicholas, a junior at Loyola High School. Dr. Lampone’s office is located at 948 Monument, Suite 102. Contact: 459-6637 (medical-legal consulting) or 459-8282 (Work Comp Solutions).
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