Can any state rival Kentucky for keeping physicians in the headlines in recent days? Three big stories in a five-day span:
On October 30 the Franklin Circuit Court struck down as unconstitutional a new Kentucky statute...more
Who says a background in English literature has no practical value? Certainly not the attorneys defending Dimensions Health in a class action filed on behalf of patients treated by an OB/GYN on the Dimensions medical staff....more
Lancet Indemnity’s $1 M med mal policy had a standard clause requiring the insured, Dr. Ishtiaq Malik, to cooperate and assist Lancet and appointed counsel in investigating and defending claims. But when the family of...more
Dr. Bob Halterman is something of a Midas-in-Reverse. His refusal to pay $38,000 he owed Johnson Regional Medical Center resulted in a $65,000 judgment in favor of the hospital.
When the hospital recruited Dr. Bob, the...more
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s cast its June 20 opinion as standing for the proposition that a surgeon can’t delegate his duty of obtaining informed consent to anyone else—his physician assistant in the case at hand. But...more
When Kerrie Evans’s child was born with cystic fibrosis, she sued her nurse practitioner and doctor for failure to adequately inform her about prenatal testing for CF, making concerns about cost the centerpiece of her...more
Indiana’s relaxed telemedicine rules went into effect July 1. Generally, under the new rules a prescriber (defined as a physician, physician assistant, advanced practice nurse, optometrist, or podiatrist) may prescribe...more
A physician immigrated to the United States in 1991 and established a medical practice called Compassionate Doctors. By 2013 the practice and its related health care entities boasted some 44 employees and contractors,...more
ER physician Ryan Kime believed his hospital lacked the resources, procedures, and capacity to meet the requirements of EMTALA, and he repeatedly said so. At an ER meeting he reported two cases as possible EMTALA violations...more
Allstate Insurance has won a judgment of nearly $4 million against a NY lawyer and Calif. consultant who guided a NJ chiropractor in structuring a medical practice designed to appear to meet the requirements of the state...more
Dr. Steven Svabek may have set a record for the number of reasons why his tail policy didn’t cover the medical malpractice claims against him.
According to a memorandum decision issued last week by the Indiana Court of...more
State limitations on medical malpractice recoveries seem to be under almost daily attack. The latest serious threat comes from Louisiana, where a federal district court has authorized an interlocutory appeal of his ruling...more
On April 7 the Indiana Supreme Court handed the plaintiffs’ bar a solid victory in the six-year battle that has raged since issuance of the 2011 Indiana Court of Appeals decision in K.D. v. Chambers. That decision was...more
March 23 saw a rare spectacle in the courtroom of the Indiana Supreme Court: lawyers for a medical malpractice case plaintiff, supported by the Indiana Trial Lawyers as amicus, and lawyers for the physician defendant in the...more
Since enactment of the Health Care Quality Improvement Act in 1986, physicians haven’t usually fared well when they go to court to stop or delay hospital peer review actions, provided the hospitals follow the procedural steps...more
Charged with 33 counts of Medicare fraud netting some $45 million in false claims, Richard Tinimbang invoked a novel defense: “My mom made me do it!”
That, according to Law360, is the gist of the opening statement of...more
Concerned about a surgeon’s skill, a hospital ordered him to “have five bowel surgery cases proctored,” specifying no time limit. After a month, when the surgeon hadn’t met the five-case requirement, the hospital filed an...more
If an obstetrician’s negligence causes the miscarriage of a nonviable fetus—i.e., one that couldn’t live outside the womb–does the patient have a cause of action for wrongful death? In Alabama the answer is yes, according to...more
A recent study of state apology laws by three Vanderbilt University researchers concludes, among other things, that “from the perspective of physicians, apology laws are almost certainly detrimental,” increasing the frequency...more
A California appellate court has declared physician Visha Dev the loser in his dating contest with Blue Shield Life and Blue Shield California. The contest arose when the Blues moved for summary judgment in Dev’s action...more
The White House is reviewing proposed regulations to ease restrictions on certain financial arrangements between hospitals and physicians and on certain transactions between providers and patients. The proposed regulations,...more
The Joint Commission made a big splash when it issued its “Update: Texting Orders” back in the spring. That Update rescinded the accrediting organization’s long-standing prohibition on sending physician orders via text...more
Why would a hospital and one of its physicians demand that a case against them be branded a malpractice case? Why would they sue the trial court to force it to call the action a malpractice case? A recent Nevada case...more
There was a time when liability—criminal or civil—for drug abuse or forged prescriptions usually lay only with the abuser or the forger and those who actively helped them. Those days are long gone.
First, we had PDMPs...more
Can it be a crime to provide free medical care? That’s the question presented by a post-conviction motion by the so-called King of Nursing Homes, Dr. V. Kuchipudi.
Dr. K was convicted on nine counts of violating the...more