The Midwest Medical Legal Advisor provides legal information for healthcare providers and administrators, malpractice insurance professionals, and attorneys.
Malpractice Payments Decrease
According to a new study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in the past ten years, the rate of medical malpractice claims resulting in some sort of payment has seen a drastic reduction. The study examined data from the National Practitioner Data Bank and the American Medical [...]
Why you shouldn’t view your spouse’s PHI (and share with a coworker).
Recently, a federal court judge dismissed a lawsuit that an Ohio woman filed claiming that a hospital did not safeguard her EMR (electronic medical records). In an interesting twist, the woman alleged that her husband, who worked at the hospital, was able to access her EMR and share them with [...]
It’s HIPAA time!
I thought I'd spend the next few blogs discussing the joy that is HIPAA compliance. Previously, I blogged about two NMC employees who had been fired after viewing the protected health information of Dr. Richard Sacra, one of the patients treated at the NMC for ebola. The potential fines and penalties [...]
Selfies are fun (unless you are performing surgery)!
Let's be honest. Selfies are fun. They are great ways of capturing the moment. Like my daughter and I on the merry-go-round at FunPlex this summer. Selfies can also get you in lots of trouble. I can honestly say I have never had a doctor or other health care provider [...]
Contracts for Doctors
It is not unusual for a doctor to be asked to sign a contact governing his or her employment and/or ownership of a business as a doctor. The issues to consider in reviewing these contracts are many: - Med mal insurance - Staffing (nurses, assistants, etc) - Provision of medical equipment [...]
Black box to be used to record surgery?
Surgeons: how would you like every move of the surgeries you perform recorded with a “black box” type device? Such a device would make a record of every movement during a surgery, and potentially, provide real-time feedback to identify mistakes. Not only would it record the surgery itself, it could record [...]