The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has just released on opinion on the issue of the ability of non-physician health care professionals to own and operate a medical practice and to employee physicians. Here are the two specific issues addressed: "1. Considering the provisions of Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 63-6-204(b), 68-11-205(a),…
How much transparency should there be in health care? In commerce in general? Senator Grassley wants transparency in medicine – he has introduced legislation that is designed to require drug companies to disclose what they pay doctors. Read about the legislation in this article from the New York Times. The…
Charlie Weis, the head coach of the Notre Dame football team, lost the medical malpractice case he filed in Massachusetts. The lawsuit arose out of gastric bypass surgery Weis had in June of 2002. According to this article posted on www.boston.com, "Weis, 51, who became ill after the operation, alleged…
The Michigan Law Review has published an interesting article called "Doctors & Juries" by Philip G. Peters, Jr. Here is a synopsis of the article: "Physicians widely believe that jury verdicts are unfair. This Article tests that assumption by synthesizing three decades of jury research. Contrary to popular belief, the…
Here is an interesting article titled "Electronic Health Records Raise New Risks of Malpractice Liability." An excerpt: "Because more detailed information about patient care or medical decision-making may be included in the EHR than is possible with paper records, plaintiff attorneys may make extensive discovery requests for "relevant" electronic information in…
The TMA hates the Givens and Alsip opinions. The hospitals would prefer they did not exist, but were willing to accept some compromise as opposed to the outright reversal of the decisions sought by the TMA. This is what the hospitals worked out with the interested parties and the sponsors of…
The Tennessee Court of Appeals has released two opinions on the issue of apparent agency in a hospital setting. One case concerns an emergency room doctor, the other a radiologist. The law? Both decisions contain these paragraphs: "Apparent agency is essentially agency by estoppel. White v. Methodist Hosp., 844 S.W.2d…
Georgia’s med mal statute requires that when a complaint is filed the plaintiff must submit a medical authorization. The statute says that "the authorization shall provide that the attorney representing the defendant is authorized to obtain and disclose protected health information contained in medical records to facilitate the investigation, evaluation,…
This is no news to anyone who actually follows medical malpractice litigation, but it is nice to see that a person who has actually researched the issue confirms conventional wisdom accepted by everyone except lobbyists for the health care industry and the legislators they persuade. An article in Law.com reports on this…
It is getting worse. Healthgrades reports that the number of errors in our nation’s hospitals rose 3% over the years 2002 – 2005. From the press release: The HealthGrades study of 40.56 million Medicare hospitalization records over the years 2003 to 2005 … found: • Patient-safety incidents continue to rise in…