Presentation and Retention of Doctor’s Bill Raises No Presumption of Liability.—The presentation of a bill to a person containing charges against him for services rendered another person, and his retention of that bill without disclaimer of liability, does not raise a presumption of liability, for it is not necessarily an account stated. To constitute an account stated, there must be not only a statement of account, but acquiescence in it; mere retention of the account is not sufficient.
Bills Presented Not Conclusive as to Amounts Charged.—On the other hand, if a bill is presented which contains charges which are not acquiesced in, the person making out and presenting the bill is not absolutely bound by the charges therein contained, although such a bill affords some evidence as to the value of the services rendered.[170]
Claims Against Estates of Deceased Persons.—A bill for a physician’s services constitutes a claim against the estate of a deceased person, like any other debt. In some States it is a preferred claim.[171] In this connection it should be observed that short statutes of limitation exist in most countries and States applicable to such cases, shorter than the ordinary limitation imposed by law upon the right to sue upon claims for services rendered (which is six years). In order to preserve his legal rights, the physician should as soon as possible after the death of the person for whom his services have been rendered, ascertain who is the administrator or executor of the estate of such person, and file with such representative, personally, proof of his claim.
Patient who Receives Benefit of Services of Consulting Physician Liable.—The liability of a patient for the services of a consulting physician is generally governed by the same rules as his liability to the physician in immediate charge of the case.[172]
Where the patient accepts the services of a consulting physician, although he has not directly requested them, he must pay for them if he receives the benefit of them without objecting, because it will be presumed that he ratified the act of the physician who was in charge of the case, in calling the other physician into consultation.[173]
But, however this may be, it is a principle of professional ethics, which has almost acquired the authority of legal doctrine, that a physician in charge of a case should obtain the full assent of a patient, or of his family and friends, if he is too ill to give his own consent, to the calling of another physician in consultation.
No Other Stranger can be Called into Sick-Room without Assent of Patient.—A limitation upon the authority and right of an attending physician is, that if he desires or attempts to call in a stranger not a physician, he must obtain his patient’s consent. The obligation of a physician toward his patient of secrecy and confidence is regarded as very strict, and if a physician should call in a student or other stranger, without first consulting his patient, or those who are in some measure related to him and connected with him, it would be a very severe stretch of morals and possibly of law. In fact, in a recent case in Michigan, a physician was held liable for damages who called in a stranger, an unmarried man, who was an unprofessional man, to be with him while he was in attendance on a confinement case. In that case both the physician and the person so called in, and who was present at that time, were held liable in damages; and it was further held that the right to recover was not affected by the fact that the patient supposed that the person so called in was a medical man, and therefore submitted to his presence without objection.[174]
The statutes which create the privilege as to professional communications and information necessary to enable the physician to prescribe, might not apply to students or other strangers, and this is probably the reason for the rule of law laid down in the Michigan case. The obligation to preserve inviolate a communication as a privileged communication, including in the meaning of the word “communication” all knowledge or information received while in attendance upon a case, would be held to have been broken by the act of the physician in bringing in a stranger who would not be privileged from testifying.
Measure of Recovery for Services Rendered.
Terms of Express Contract Govern—Reasonable Worth the Rule in Implied Contracts.—In case of an express contract its terms necessarily measure the amount of the charges. In the absence of an express contract fixing the value of the services to be rendered, the measure of damages for breach of payment is like that in any other case of personal services, the reasonable worth and value of the services performed. So likewise if medicines or appliances are furnished, which are not reasonably to be expected and furnished, according to the custom of the school to which the physician or surgeon belongs, the reasonable worth and value at the time of furnishing them, and at the place of furnishing them, is the measure fixed by the law to determine what shall be recovered for them.[175]