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Consumer Concerns and Advice Recent UpdatesMay 12, 2008 May 05, 2008 April 30, 2008 April 22, 2008 April 14, 2008 Archives
May, 2008 Web ResourcesChalat Hatten & Koupal PC
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When you think of the legal issues arising from health care, the obvious association is medical malpractice by a doctor. Yet, as our modern health care system has become increasingly complex so to has the range of malpractice occurrences. And malpractice is not the only legal concern - your legal rights are often defined by medical insurance coverage and subrogation, HIPPA requirements, state and federal benefits, living wills and quality of life issues. For those with a legal question arising from medical care, the postings under this topic provide some answers.
Get to Know Your Doc Ever wonder about the new doctor with whom you just scheduled an appointment? Or perhaps you are curious about the specialist chosen by another physician or hospital to make a critical review of your records? Most people agree that it would be helpful for the public to have access to information regarding their doctor's professional history, but the information is not always forthcoming. There are private services, such as Health Grades which provide the information for a fee, but no universal public system of providing the background information to consumers. Now you can find out at least basic information as to a Colorado physician's complaint history. During the 2007 Colorado legislative session, House Bill 1331 was passed, making physicians' criminal and malpractice records available to the public. The bill was signed into law by Governor Ritter on May 24, 2007. The new law appears in the state statutes at C.R.S. §12-36-111.5.
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied By now, most folks have been handed a form at their doctor's office asking that they sign a statement that the privacy policies of the office and the rights of the patient have been explained to them. This is required by the federal law known as HIPPA, see HIPPA - What It Means To You.
Safety Not a State Concern? Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a medical malpractice case, Riegel v. Medtronic, holding that the federal law, Medical Device Amendments, preempts any state laws regarding medical devices where the device manufacturer complied with federal requirements. By now, everyone is aware of how little protection is frequently offered by "federal requirements" when oversight is provided by agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration or the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Now state law can offer no protection against the negligently designed or manufactured medical device so long as federal requirements are satisfied - feel safer?
Brain Dead or Brain Injured? A Minnesota woman who was declared brain dead last month left the hospital Wednesday after a miraculous recovery. The 65-year-old suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage in January. Life support had been disconnected. Somehow, she regained consciousness as her family began planning her funeral.
Study Exposes Medical Care Crisis Fairy Tale There is no medical malpractice lawsuit crisis in America, according to analysis released last month by Public Citizen. The new report, "The Great Medical Malpractice Hoax," dispels oft-repeated myths of dwindling doctors and spiraling insurance premiums used to support limits on the ability of injured patients to seek redress in the courts.
Profits Over Science in Spine Study A recent development in back care was hailed as a dramatic breakthrough. In a study of nearly 240 patients with lower back pain, the doctors performing the study concluded that the Prodisc, an artificial spinal disk, had worked much better than conventional surgery in which patients' vertebrae were fused. "As a surgeon, it is gratifying to see patients recover function more quickly than after fusion and return to their normal activities more easily," Dr. Jack E. Zigler, a well-known spine specialist and one of the study's lead researchers, said in a 2006 news release announcing the latest results of the Prodisc clinical trial.
Fire in the Hole? No, in the Incision! When one reflects upon the dangers of surgery, fire is not usually at the top of the list. Operating room fires, though less common than other potential hazards such as wrong-site surgery, have seriously injured and even killed patients. And now data shows that they are more common than previously believed.
Invasion at a Local School Near You? Just in time for Halloween, school officials around the country have been scrambling with the prospect of an invasion of bacterial infections. A federal report released last week indicated that the bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, are responsible for more deaths in the United States each year than AIDS. MRSA is a strain of staph bacteria that does not respond to penicillin or related antibiotics, though it can be treated with other drugs. The infection can be spread by sharing items, like a towel or a piece of sports equipment that has been used by an infected person, or through skin-to-skin contact with an open wound.
Odds of Suffering Burst Appendix Tied to Insurance The proper treatment for appendicitis is surgery, and the time to operation is the most significant predictor of a rupture. A perforated appendix can lead to longer stays in the hospital, increased health care costs and sometimes fatal infection.
Hospital Transparency - No, Not the Gowns The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the nation's largest public health system, will voluntarily make public infection and death rates at the eleven hospitals within its system. The city hospitals, which serve 1.3 million patients annually, are far ahead of the industry, health care experts and consumer advocates said. The information on the safety and performance of its hospitals will be posted on a new Web site, which will be accessible to the public on Friday. The new Web site will provide information on statistics such as the rate of deaths after heart attacks and preventable bloodstream infections by hospital.
1.2 million Hospital Patients at Risk for Staph As many as 1.2 million hospital patients are infected with dangerous, drug-resistant staph infections each year, almost 10 times more than previous estimates, based on findings from a major new study by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology (APIC), which is released the report on Monday. The author is Dr. William Jarvis, former acting director of the hospital infections program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And 48,000 to 119,000 hospital patients a year may be dying from methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, far more than previously thought, the study concludes.
FDA Again Comes to Our Rescue Officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration say they have dramatically boosted inspections of companies that harvest cadaver body parts for transplant, acknowledging weaknesses in government oversight of the multibillion-dollar human tissue industry that last year was rocked by scandal. The FDA claims the inspections turned up no serious problems. But an internal task force report urges the agency to establish a method for tracking body parts from cadaver to transplant patient as well as other problems, but operators of accredited tissue banks and others familiar with the industry say the report doesn't go far enough to clean up the problem.
Web Prescription Death Snares Colorado Doctor Two years ago, Christian Hageseth logged on to the Internet in Colorado and prescribed anti-depressant drugs to a California teenager with a history of mental illness and alcohol abuse. A few months later, 19-year-old John McKay killed himself in his family home. Upon learning that Hageseth had treated McKay, and that he didn't have a license in California, state medical investigators urged local prosecutors to charge him with a felony. Last year they did, accusing him of practicing without a California license. The maximum penalty, according to the prosecution, would be three years in state prison and state fines.
Study shows juries favor doctors Juries still side with doctors in about half of medical malpractice cases where strong evidence of negligence is presented. This is old news to those of us who handle medical malpractice claims on behalf of patients, but now it is "official" according to a new review of 30 years of medical malpractice jury verdicts.
U.S. Hospital Errors Continue Deadly Trend
FDA Conflicts To Be Limited The Food and Drug Administration took a step many consider long-overdue and proposed new rules yesterday that would make it tougher for scientists with industry ties to offer advice about approving new drugs and medical devices. The FDA said that most scientists with $50,000 or more in stock, consulting fees or other financial links to companies should be barred from making recommendations to the agency about a related product. Scientists with smaller financial interests would be allowed to participate in agency advisory meetings but could not vote.
Home Sweet Home It's Not Earlier this week The Boston Globe reported on the very sad case of 77-year-old Jean Dwyer. Mrs. Dwyer seemed distressed as she lay in her bed at a Norwell, MA nursing home last fall, but she could not explain to her grown daughter what was wrong due to the mother's dementia. Her daughter attended her bedside daily for a couple of weeks, and was ultimately told that her mother's organs were shutting down and that she was near death.
Cadaver Parts Becoming "Growth Industry"? Last Halloween it was New York City funeral homes partaking in clandestine selling of cadaver parts, see Modern Day Body Snatchers - now the former director of the cadaver donor program at the University of California, Los Angeles, along with his modern-day Igor, have been charged with conspiracy and grand theft. Both have been accused of illegally trading body parts that had been donated to the University for Medical Research.
Fair Trials for New Drugs? We hear daily reports on results from clinical trials for new drugs, and they have a tendency to show positive results - particularly in trials with drug-company funding. A new study appearing on the website of the American Cancer Society, analyzes 140 trials of breast-cancer drugs. In 2003, trials with pharmaceutical-company backing showed positive results in 84% of the studies, compared to just 54 % for trials without industry backing.
Plastic Surgeon Pays for ?High Profile? Botched plastic surgeries are not uncommon, nor is it uncommon for one to become the basis for a medical malpractice lawsuit. But one patient took the uncommon step of not only suing her plastic surgeon, but creating a website detailing her experience, http://www.mysurgerynightmare.com. |
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The information you obtain at this site is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. You should consult an attorney for individual advice regarding your own situation. | |
