Category Archives: Health Law

Oklahoma Didn’t Know It Was Lost!

01 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by in Health Law, Medical Marijuana

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The New York Times Has Discovered Oklahoma! by Jeremy Telman, ContractsProf Blog

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2021/12/the-new-york-times-has-discovered-oklahoma.html

Associate Law Professor Jeremy Telman, Oklahoma City University Law School, provided the shocking news.  Oklahomans are growing, selling, and consuming marijuana. Oh my goodness sakes alive!

Medical marijuana became legal in Oklahoma three years ago. Just drive around. You cannot throw a rock without hitting a marijuana dispensary in Oklahoma.  I know – I live here.  

Although Oklahoma is predominantly a red state, medical marijuana sends tax money to state coffers. Can you say cha-ching? 

Thank you, Professor Telman! Interesting read! -CCE

Could Lawyers Fix The Rising Cost of Medicine?

01 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by in Drug Promotion, Government, Health Law, Health Reform, Intellectual Property, Patent Law, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

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Send In The Lawyers: A Partial Fix For America’s Dystopian Prescription Drug Market, by Max Kennerly, Esq., Litigation & Trial Blog

http://tinyurl.com/nb82ky8

It’s hard to read any news about prescription drugs these days without wondering if you’ve somehow fallen into a Philip K. Dick novel. Just look at some of these titles over the past week:

All of these stories are about different drugs, but the common theme among all of the stories is, of course, money. The Mayo Clinical Proceedings recently found ‘In the United States, the average price of cancer drugs for about a year of therapy increased from $5000 to $10,000 before 2000 to more than $100,000 by 2012, while the average household income has decreased by about 8% in the past decade. Further, although 85% of cancer basic research is funded through taxpayers’ money, Americans with cancer pay 50% to 100% more for the same patented drug than patients in other countries.’ . . .

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Leiomyosarcoma And Other Types of Cancer.

08 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by in Health Law

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Leiomyosarcoma – Information for Leiomyosarcoma Families

Leiomyosarcoma.org

No, I can’t pronounce this, and I won’t pretend that I know much about it. This is a rare type of cancer that attacks soft tissue and involuntary muscle. The good news is that, if caught early, it can be effectively removed and treated. Learn more about it at http://www.leiomyosarcoma.org/blog.

There are many different types of cancer – more than I can name. If you are like me, you have lost family and friends to this disease, or perhaps you know someone, as I do, who happily are cured. Regardless, any one diagnosed with cancer goes down a difficult road. You will find more information at these links:

National Cancer Institute

http://www.cancer.gov/

American Association of Cancer Research

http://tinyurl.com/o22o4k5

American Cancer Society

http://www.cancer.org/

Cancer Health Center – Web MD

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/

Cancer Treatment Center of America

http://www.cancercenter.com/cancer/

 

Texas Supreme Court Agrees That Compounding Pharmacy Is “Health Care Provider.”

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Appellate Law, Damages, Health Law, Litigation, Negligence, Texas Supreme Court

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Texas Supreme Court Holds That Compounding Pharmacies Are Health Care Providers Under Texas Medical Liability Act, by Elinor H. Murarova, Duane Morris Health Law Blog

http://tinyurl.com/k75hx7m

On April 24, 2015, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed claims against a compounding pharmacy and its individual pharmacists which alleged negligence in compounding a lipoic acid medication, finding that the defendants were health care providers entitled to the protections in the Texas Medical Liability Act (‘TMLA’).

In the case Randol Mill Pharmacy et al. v. Miller et al., Case No. 13-1014 (Tex. Sup. Ct.), the plaintiff’s physician prescribed and administered weekly intravenous injections of 200 mg/ml lipoic acid, an antioxidant supplement. The plaintiff alleged that she underwent nine weeks of treatment without incident, but in the tenth treatment she suffered a severe adverse reaction and as a result was hospitalized for several weeks, received multiple blood transfusions, and went permanently blind in both eyes. Randol Mill Pharmacy compounded the lipoic acid that allegedly caused the adverse reaction.

In her complaint against the compounding pharmacy and its individual pharmacists, the plaintiff alleged that these defendants gave inadequate and inappropriate warnings and instructions for using the compounded lipoid acid; that the compounded lipoid acid was defective, ineffective and unreasonably dangerous; and that the compounding pharmacy and pharmacists generally breached implied warranties with respect to the design, manufacture, inspection, marketing, and/or distribution of the compounded lipoid acid. . . .

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Kentucky’s Bill To Prevent “Frivolous” Nursing Home And Other Medical Abuse Claims, But Is That The Problem?

21 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Elder Abuse, Elder Law, Health Law, Health Reform, Litigation, Medical Malpractice, Negligence, Nursing Home Abuse, Personal Injury, Skilled Nursing Facilities, Wrongful Death

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Senate OKs Bill For Review Panels In Medical Lawsuits After Lively Debate Between Doctors, Lawyers, Others, by Melissa Patrick, Kentucky Health News

http://kyhealthnews.blogspot.com/2015/02/senate-committee-oks-bill-for-review.html

The Senate has approved a bill that advocates say will help weed out ‘frivolous’ medical malpractice lawsuits and speed up litigation for legitimate suits.

‘Right now, Kentucky has one of the nations most litigation-friendly environments, making our commonwealth a prime and profitable target for personal injury lawyers preying upon our health care providers,’ Sen. Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, a physician and sponsor of Senate Bill 6, told the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. Opponents disputed that claim.

The Senate passed the bill Thursday 24-12. It is not expected to pass the House.

The bill would establish panels of three medical experts, two chosen by each side and the third chosen by the other two, to review suits against health-care providers to determine if the case has merit before the lawsuit can proceed. Panel findings would be admissible in court but not legally binding.

The Republican-controlled Senate passed a very similar bill last year but it got nowhere in the Democrat-controlled House, and its prospects are similar this time. However, Wednesday’s committee meeting provided a detailed and lively explication of the issue, lasing almost two hours.

Vanessa Cantley, a Louisville personal injury attorney, told the committee that most medical malpractice cases are legitimate. She cited a Harvard University study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that concluded ‘portraits of a malpractice system that is stricken with frivolous litigation are overblown’ and reported that 97 percent of claims for medical injury evaluated over a decade were deemed to be meritorious.

However, Michael Sutton of Louisville, a civil defense attorney, said defendants win 80 per cent of medical malpractice suits.

Cantley said there are 2,700 deaths in Kentucky each year due to purely preventable medical error, but, according to the state Department of Insurance, fewer than 500 lawsuits a year are filed by abuse and neglect victims. . . .

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A Legal Analysis of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Case Law, Evidence, Expert Witnesses, Health Law, Law Journals, Law Reviews, References, Research, Secondary Resources

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Shaken Baby Syndrome: A Differential Diagnosis of Justice, by Ken Strutin, LLRX.com

http://www.llrx.com/features/shakenbabysyndrome.htm

When King Solomon resolved history’s best-known custody dispute, he implicitly divined that the death of the absent child was due to accidental infanticide, not intentional homicide.1 And his method was an early testament to truth finding. Today, the investigation of infantile death is too often accompanied by hurried accusations and false confessions.2 And the search for truth is left to lawyers and experts who have become as adversarial as the testificants in Solomon’s court. The concept of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS)3 has become a battleground where medical evidence and legal presumptions clash, testing the limits of judicial wisdom.4

The investigation and prosecution of SBS cases5 has revealed an historical and ongoing tension among medical experts6 and legal practitioners and scholars.7 From the Supreme Court on down, judges in these cases have had to struggle with complex emotions, societal impulses, conflicting witness and expert testimonies, as well as ineffectiveness of defense counsel, need for appointed experts, admissibility under Frye-Daubert, and assessment of newly discovered evidence.8 Thus, legal investigation into the reasons behind infant deaths has turned into a medical “who done it” with the suspects ranging from accident and natural causes to the criminal conduct of parents and caretakers.9

This is a collection of recent and select court decisions, law reviews and news articles that explore the ongoing scientific and legal arguments about the definition and exclusivity of shaken baby syndrome evidence. . . .

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All Types Of 2015 Internet Privacy Protection Sites.

14 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Clouds, Computer Forensics, Computer Virus, Cybersecurity, Document Retention, Health Law, HIPAA, Law Office Management, Legal Ethics, Legal Technology, Technology, Technology

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Guide To Privacy Resources 2015, by Marcus P. Zillman, LLRX.com

http://www.llrx.com/features/privacyresources2015.htm

The Guide to Privacy Resources 2015 is a comprehensive listing of privacy resources currently available on the Internet. These include associations, indexes, search engines as well as individual websites and sources that supply the latest technology and information about privacy and how it relates to you and the Internet. These resources and sources will help you to discover the many pathways available to you through the Internet to find the latest privacy sources and sites. . . .

Malpractice Immunity And Defensive Medicine.

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by in Evidence, Health Law, Medical Malpractice, Recent Links and Articles

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Giving Physicians Immunity From Malpractice Claims Does Not Reduce ‘Defensive Medicine,’  Medical News Today (Rand Corporation)

Changing laws to make it more difficult to sue physicians for medical malpractice may not reduce the amount of ‘defensive medicine’ practiced by physicians, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Studying the behavior of emergency physicians in three states that raised the standard for malpractice in the emergency room to gross negligence, researchers found that strong new legal protections did not translate into less-expensive care.

The findings are published in the Oct. 16 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

‘Our findings suggest that malpractice reform may have less effect on costs than has been projected by conventional wisdom,’ said Dr. Daniel A. Waxman, the study’s lead author and a researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. ‘Physicians say they order unnecessary tests strictly out of fear of being sued, but our results suggest the story is more complicated.’

It is widely said that defensive medicine accounts for a substantial part of the hundreds of billions of dollars of unnecessary health care spending that is estimated to occur annually in the United States. Malpractice reform has been advocated by many experts as a key to reining in health care costs.

RAND researchers looked at three states — Georgia, Texas and South Carolina — that about a decade ago changed the legal malpractice standard for emergency care to gross negligence. Other states use the more common ordinary negligence standard, or a failure to exercise reasonable care.

The higher standard means that for physicians accused of malpractice in the three states examined, plaintiffs must prove that doctors consciously disregarded the need to use reasonable care, knowing full well that their actions were likely to cause serious injury. . . .

Insurers Using Generic Drugs To Shift Costs To Sick?

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Affordable Care Act, Drug Promotion, Health Care Benefits, Health Law, Health Reform

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A New Way Insurers are Shifting Costs to the Sick, by Charles Ornstein, ProPublica (This story was co-published with The New York Times’ The Upshot.)

http://tinyurl.com/kaaelvg

By charging higher prices for generic drugs that treat certain illness, health insurers may be violating the spirit of the Affordable Care Act, which bans discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions.

Health insurance companies are no longer allowed to turn away patients because of their pre-existing conditions or charge them more because of those conditions. But some health policy experts say insurers may be doing so in a more subtle way: by forcing people with a variety of illnesses — including Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and epilepsy — to pay more for their drugs.

Insurers have long tried to steer their members away from more expensive brand name drugs, labeling them as ‘non-preferred’ and charging higher co-payments. But according to an editorial published Wednesday in the American Journal of Managed Care, several prominent health plans have taken it a step further, applying that same concept even to generic drugs.

The Affordable Care Act bans insurance companies from discriminating against patients with health problems, but that hasn’t stopped them from seeking new and creative ways to shift costs to consumers. In the process, the plans effectively may be rendering a variety of ailments ‘non-preferred,’ according to the editorial.

‘It is sometimes argued that patients should have ‘skin in the game’ to motivate them to become more prudent consumers,’ the editorial says. ‘One must ask, however, what sort of consumer behavior is encouraged when all generic medicines for particular diseases are ‘non-preferred’ and subject to higher co-pays.’ . . .

ProPublica’s Ongoing Series and Investigation Into Medicare Waste And Fraud.

12 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by in Criminal Law, False Claims Act, Health Law, Medicare Fraud

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Fanny Pack Mixup Unravels Massive Medicare Fraud Scheme, by Charles Ornstein, ProPublica

http://www.propublica.org/article/fanny-pack-mixup-unravels-massive-medicare-fraud-scheme

This article is part of an ongoing investigation by ProPublica into Medicare fraud. This is just one of several articles currently at ProPublica about its investigation. -CCE

Two secretaries in a doctor’s office have pleaded guilty and a pharmacy owner faces charges in a scam that Medicare allowed to thrive for more than two years.

The fraud scheme began to unravel last fall, with the discovery of a misdirected stack of bogus prescriptions — and a suspicious spike in Medicare drug spending tied to a doctor in Key Biscayne, Fla.

Now it’s led to two guilty pleas, as well as an ongoing criminal case against a pharmacy owner.

Last year, ProPublica chronicled how lax oversight had led to rampant waste and fraud in Medicare’s prescription drug program, known as Part D. As part of that series, we wrote about Dr. Carmen Ortiz-Butcher, a kidney specialist whose Part D prescriptions soared from $282,000 in 2010 to $4 million the following year. The value of her prescriptions rose to nearly $5 million in 2012, the most recent year available.

But no one in Medicare bothered to ask her about the seemingly huge change in her practice, Ortiz-Butcher’s attorney said. She stumbled across a sign of trouble last September, after asking a staffer to mail a fanny pack to her brother. But instead of receiving the pack, he received a package of prescriptions purportedly signed by the doctor, lawyer Robert Mayer said last year. Ortiz-Butcher immediately alerted authorities.

Since then, investigators have uncovered a web of interrelated scams that, together, cost the federal government up to $7 million, documents show. . . .

Will Insurers Win Battle Against Rising Cancer Treatment Costs?

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Drug Promotion, Health Law, Health Reform, Insurance Coverage, Insurance Law

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Insurers Take Up Fight Against Rising Chemotherapy Costs, by Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News 

http://tinyurl.com/no6clm6

Some cancer patients and their insurers are seeing their bills for chemotherapy jump sharply, reflecting increased drug prices and hospitals’ push to buy oncologists’ practices and then bill at higher rates.

Patients say, ‘I’ve been treated with Herceptin for breast cancer for several years and it was always $5,000 for the drug and suddenly it’s $16,000 — and I was in the same room with the same doctor same nurse and the same length of time,’ said Dr. Donald Fischer, chief medical officer for Highmark, the largest health plan in Pennsylvania.

Like other insurers, Highmark found that when hospital systems bought doctors’ practices, chemotherapy costs rose because physicians’ offices were then deemed ‘hospital outpatient centers’ and could charge more for overhead.

Now insurers are pushing back. In what may be the first move of its kind, Highmark in April stopped paying higher fees for chemotherapy drugs given to patients whose doctors work for hospitals, instead paying the same price they would have had the doctor remained independent. . . .

Marijuana Legalization Webinar Slides.

26 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by in Criminal Law, Drug Possession, Health Law, Medical Marijuana

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Webinar Slides: Marijuana Legalization – The Legal Ins and Outs, by Tim Baran, Legal Productivity Blog

http://tinyurl.com/l2d3qyx

Here’s the slide deck from today’s terrific webinar: Marijuana Legalization – The Legal Ins and Outs for Cannabis Business Clients with Marijuana Industry Attorney of the Year, Hilary Bricken.

Find out what attorneys and their marijuana business clients need to know. Topics include: general licensing process with various state agencies, local law implementation and litigation, medical versus recreational marijuana, trademark registration and protection, taxation, real estate transactions, and banking issues. . . . .

Medicare Study of Injuries and Fatalities in Skilled Nursing Facilities.

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Health Law, Skilled Nursing Facilities, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

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One Third of Skilled Nursing Patients Harmed in Treatment, by Marshall Allen, ProPublica

http://tinyurl.com/kdrmeaz

A study by Medicare’s inspector general of skilled nursing facilities says nearly 22,000 patients were injured and more than 1,500 died in a single month — a higher rate of medical errors than hospitals. . . .

HIPAA’s Omnibus Final Rule – Revise Your Procedures!

27 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Final Omnibus Rule, Government, Health Law, HIPAA, Law Office Management, Legal Malpractice, Office Procedures

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Ethics in Brief – HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule: One Year Anniversary and Impact on Attorneys as Business Associates, by Linda Hunt Mullany, Ofer Barley, and Charles Berwanger, of Gordon & Rees LLP, for Ihe San Diego County Bar Association

https://www.sdcba.org/index.cfm?pg=Ethics-in-Brief-2-3-2014

January 25, 2014 marks the one year anniversary of the publication of the long-awaited omnibus final rule (“Final Rule”) by the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“OCR”).  The Final Rule implemented many proposed regulations, and addressed other provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) in accordance with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH Act”).  This article addresses the most pertinent changes affecting attorneys as business associates who receive protected health information (“PHI”) from a covered entity.  Please note that additional requirements by state-specific privacy laws may apply.    

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What This Means to Attorneys as Business Associates Going Forward
The extension of the covered entity’s responsibilities to business associates now brings possible civil and criminal liability to the forefront.  HIPAA civil fines for noncompliance can be up to $50,000 per violation (or a maximum of $1.5 million for repeated violations) depending on the degree of culpability, and criminal penalties may result in up to ten years in prison.  When combined with state penalties, these numbers may be even higher, and land an unwary attorney with front-page publicity of the wrong kind.  Anyone can file a complaint with the OCR if he or she believes that a violation occurred since the complainant need not be an actual victim.  The federal government will then decide whether to investigate and impose a fine or penalty.  Separately, noncompliance may also involve state bar discipline for attorney misconduct or causes for legal malpractice and, in California, individual patients can bring private lawsuits when their PHI has been negligently released in violation of state law.

Attorneys as business associates must immediately comply with the HIPAA Security and Privacy Rules.  That means that they will need to conduct a security risk assessment and draft a security policy for handling client electronic files that contain PHI.  Further, attorneys will need to implement HIPAA privacy policies regarding the use, disclosure, maintenance and destruction of PHI in any form.  Finally, if attorneys have not done so already, they are advised to audit their existing BAAs and come into compliance with the updated provisions, especially if they use subcontractors.

Primer on Electronic Medical Records.

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Electronic Records, Health Law

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Electronic Medical Records: A Primer, by Todd Hendrickson, Lawyerist Blog

http://lawyerist.com/electronic-medical-records-a-primer/

I’ve litigated personal injury cases for nearly 25 years and I’ve read literally millions of pages of medical records. The advent of electronic medical records (EMRs, also known as EHRs for Electronic Health Records) was touted as the answer to many litigators complaints: Handwritten records were often incomplete, confusing and illegible. And while a printout is (usually) legible, EMRs bring with them a host of other problems and considerations. If you deal with medical records in your practice, there are some things you should know.

Must Health Plans Cover Costs of Suicide?

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Health Law, Health Reform

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Despite Law, Health Plans Refuse Medical Claims Related To Suicide, by Michelle Andrews, NPR Health News

http://tinyurl.com/lxowwyu

Dealing with the aftermath of a suicide or attempted suicide is stressful enough. But some health plans make a harrowing experience worse by refusing to cover medical costs for injuries that are related to suicide, even though the federal health law doesn’t allow such exclusions, legal and government analysts say.

Yet patients or their loved ones often don’t realize that.

Why Doctors Stay Silent When They See Mistakes Made By Other Doctors.

04 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Health Law, Health Reform, Medical Malpractice

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Why Doctors Stay Mum About Mistakes Their Colleagues Make, by Marshall Allen, ProPublica

http://tinyurl.com/q2tknhf

A video discussion about why doctors stay silent about this problem is at the end of this post. -CCE

Patients don’t always know when their doctor has made a medical error. But other doctors do.

Experienced Trial Attorney Shares The Risks and Rewards Of Personal Injury Lawsuits.

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Depositions, Discovery, Expert Witness, Experts, Health Law, Law Office Management, Litigation, Medical Malpractice, Personal Injury, Trial Tips and Techniques

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Why Lawsuits Are So Expensive, Pt. I, by Gregory H. Haubrich, Foshee & Yaffe, Butter’s Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mgq7pnl

You’d be surprised at how careful good personal injury lawyers are about what cases they take. In general the public thinks that we can take any person with any complaint and get them some of what our governor calls “jackpot justice.” In truth, the economics of our practice and the ethics of our profession require that we only take cases of serious injury that are objectively provable. We as plaintiff’s lawyers most often fund the expenses of our clients’ cases; otherwise they would not have access to the courts because court cases are expensive. However, if we invest in unsuccessful cases, the time and money we put into those cases will be lost.

Federal Government Is On Board The Eight Pending Lawsuits Against Health Management Associates Inc.

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in False Claims Act, Fraud, Health Law

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Government Intervenes in Lawsuits Against Health Management Associates Inc. Hospital Chain Alleging Unnecessary Inpatient Admissions and Payment of Kickbacks, by Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2014/January/14-civ-037.html

The government has intervened in eight False Claims Act lawsuits against Health Management Associates Inc. (HMA) alleging that HMA billed federal health care programs for medically unnecessary inpatient admissions from the emergency departments at HMA hospitals and paid remuneration to physicians in exchange for patient referrals, the Justice Department announced today.  The government also has joined in the allegations in one of these lawsuits that Gary Newsome, HMA’s former CEO, directed HMA’s corporate practice of pressuring emergency department physicians and hospital administrators to raise inpatient admission rates, regardless of medical necessity.  HMA operates 71 hospitals in 15 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.

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The lawsuits allege that HMA’s corporate officers, at the direction of Newsome, exerted significant pressure on doctors in the emergency department to admit patients who could have been placed in observation, treated as outpatients or discharged, and that this resulted in the submission of inflated or false claims to federal health care programs.  One lawsuit also alleges that patients were improperly admitted for scheduled surgical procedures that should have been done on an outpatient basis.  The complaints further allege that HMA paid kickbacks, either in the form of bonuses or awarded contracts, to physician groups staffing HMA emergency rooms to induce the physicians to admit patients unnecessarily. . . .  [Emphasis added.]

FDA Documents Reveal Its Inadequate Response to High Risk Antibiotics in Livestock.

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Freedom of Information Act, Government, Health Law, U.S. Department of Food and Drug Administration

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The FDA Allows Sale of ‘High Risk’ Antibiotics for Livestock, Report Says, by Andrew Martin, Bloomberg Businessweek

 http://tinyurl.com/lsbntp3

There are hyperlinks throughout the article to additional blog posts that shed more light on the world-wide scope of this situation. -CCE

A U.S. Food and Drug Administration review of 30 antibiotics used in livestock found that more than half posed a significant risk of exposing humans to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Despite the review, which occurred from 2001 to 2010, the federal agency allowed the drugs—used as additives in animal feed and water—to remain on the market, according to a report released on Monday by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that based its findings on internal documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Court Splits on Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress.

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Damages, Health Law, Litigation, Massachusetts Supreme Court, Medical Malpractice, Torts, Trial Tips and Techniques

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Pennsylvania Supreme Court Splits On Extension of Tort of Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress, by Daniel E. Cummins, TORT TALK Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mr4matq

The recent December 22, 2011 split decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the long-anticipated Opinion in the case of Toney v. Chester County Hospital, 2011 WL 6413948 (Pa. Dec. 22, 2011)(Baer, Todd, and McCaffery, JJ. join in support of affirmance)(Castille, Saylor, Eakin, JJ. join in support of reversal)(Orie Melvin, J. not participating) serves to fuel an argument in favor of the extension of the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED).

Will Using Electronic Health Records Affect Your Privacy?

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Electronic Records, Health Law, HIPAA, Privacy

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Privacy, Security, And Electronic Health Records, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights

http://tinyurl.com/kd7plbb

For more information, go to http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/.

Your health care provider may be moving from paper records to electronic health records (EHRs) or may be using EHRs already. EHRs allow providers to use information more effectively to improve the quality and efficiency of your care, but EHRs will not change the privacy protections or security safeguards that apply to your health information.

2014 Employment Law Predictions.

11 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in Affirmative Action, Bullying, Criminal History, Employment Law, Gender Discrimination, Health Care Benefits, Health Reform, Internships, Medical Marijuana, Minimum Wage, Pregnancy Discrimination

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Donna’s Employment Law Predictions for 2014, by Donna Ballman, Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mqokell

Minimum wage, legalized marijuana, health care, internships, background checks, pregnancy discrimination, and more. -CCE

Drug Regulation Expert Awarded Almost $4 Million As Whistleblower Under False Claims Act.

11 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in Employment Law, Health Law, Whistleblower

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Leawood Expert On Drug Regulation Wins $4 Million Whistleblower Award, by Greg Hack, The Kansas City Star

http://tinyurl.com/kcq88wa

CareFusion will pay $40.1 million in final settlement with the Department of Justice under the False Claims Act whistleblower law. Cynthia Kirk, an expert on drug regulation, will receive almost $4 million in reward as the whistleblower. -CCE

Changes Expected This Year in Pennsylvania Civil Litigation.

05 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Construction, Expert Witness, Legal Technology, Litigation, Medical Malpractice, Motor Vehicle, Product Liability, Technology, Trial Tips and Techniques

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Changes Anticipated for Pa. Civil Litigation Jurisprudence in 2014, by Daniel E. Cummins, TORT TALK, republished from Pennsylvania Law Weekly

http://www.torttalk.com/2014/01/article-changes-anticipated-for-pa.html

Currently, there are a number of important civil litigation issues pending before the Pennsylvania appellate courts, the results of which could significantly impact the way litigators practice in the years ahead. Moreover, notable changes over the past year in Pennsylvania statutory law, as well as the Rules of Professional Responsibility, are expected to have a significant impact.