AHLA's monthly podcast featuring health lawyer and blogger Norm Tabler's informative and entertaining take on recent health law and other legal developments.
To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.
AHLA's monthly podcast featuring health lawyer and blogger Norm Tabler's informative and entertaining take on recent health law and other legal developments.
To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.
This episode of A H L A. Speaking of health law is brought to you by A H L A members and donors like you. For more information, visit american health law.org.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Norm Taber with this month's edition of the Lighter Side of Health Law. So you think you're understaffed. This may provide some comfort to hospital workers, especially nurses who believe their institution is understaffed. According to Becker's Hospital Review at Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, New York, the nurse patient ratio for the emergency psych program is, are you sitting down? 1 2 53 asked to comment the hospital said in effect, Hey, this is a national problem. What's in a name? Lately I've had to spend a lot of time in hospitals and I've noticed something interesting about names. If you go by introductions and even sometimes by name badges, you would think that nurses have no last names and doctors have no first names. Maybe that's why I noticed this news release. Coming out of California nurse practitioner Sarah Ernie has been fined$20,000 for calling herself Dr. Sarah Ernie. Rather than nurse Sarah Ernie, or nurse practitioner Sarah Ernie, nurse practitioners are not allowed to attach the word doctor to their names, at least not in California. More on the name game. More news about provider names. JAMA analyzed 30,000 emails from 15,000 patients at the Mayo Clinic. Female doctors were twice as likely as male doctors to be addressed by their first name. Paging Claude Rains. In the movie Casablanca, Claude Rains plays the head of the local police. When someone asks what he's going to do about illegal gambling in Rick's cafe, he memorably replies. I'm shocked. Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. Meanwhile, a croupier hands him wads of Bills reigns came to mind when I read the front page. New York Times article breathlessly reporting that NYU's Lang Hospital gives preferential treatment to major donors. When Okta Jane Kenneth Langin, who gave so much money, they renamed the entire hospital after him showed up at the er. He did not have to wait in line like everyone else. I was shocked. Shocked to learn that very important people get v I P treatment. That's why they're called Hail Mary shots. Well, the 18 criminal defendants were all former n B players and they were in a court just not a hardwood court. So why not try a Hail Mary? The longest of long shots? They stand accused of defrauding the N B A health plan by submitting 4 million in fake medical claims. The Hail Mary defense. Well, it's the player's health plan. It belongs to current and former players we're former players. So we own the plan. That means you're accusing us of stealing from ourselves, but a person can't steal from himself. So we're innocent. Q E D. When the judge stopped laughing, she swatted the defense back into their collective face. The case is USA versus Williams Southern District of New York Health Law. In the headlines, the long-running litigation brought by the parents of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims has resulted in judgments of over$1.5 billion against Alec Jones. You might not think that health law would enter into the picture, but it has. Jones' chief lawyer, Norman Patis had access to the plaintiff parents' mental health records because they claimed mental suffering. But the records came with a strict protective order, an order that Pattis ignored, which resulted in the records being passed around among various people in the Jones orbit. As a result, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis, has suspended pats from the practice of law for six months and referred the case to the Chief Disciplinary counsel and of course, he faces potential liability to the parents. All that on top of being known as the lawyer who lost a 1.5 billion case postscript. After writing this, I learned that Patis has appealed the suspension, his case. Okay, so I leaked the protected health information to unauthorized people, but I didn't do anything wrong because those people didn't actually read it. I did not make that up. A light bulb went off when the light bulb went off. When Robin fell while changing the light bulb at the preschool where she works, a light bulb went off in her head, a crackerjack idea for free bariatric surgery. No one disputed that she needed knee surgery as a result of the fall and the preschool paid without complaint. But when Robin presented a bill for bariatric surgery, the preschool balked, Robin sued her theory. Well, the doctor said I needed knee surgery, but he wouldn't operate until I lost weight. So I had to have bariatric surgery all because of my light bulb changing fall. Q E D. The worker's comp department ruled in her favor and the court of appeals affirmed. If you live in North Carolina and need bariatric surgery, look around your workplace. Maybe a light bulb needs changing. The case is Klutz Ellison versus Noah's Loft, North Carolina Supreme Court. Too efficient for its own good. Here's a case where a company was too efficient for its own good. United Health was pursuing a 2 million claim for overpaying low T physician services. Low T offered$25,000 and sent six copies of that settlement proposal along with copies of a$25,000 check to six United Health addresses that were used during negotiations. A seventh copy included the actual$25,000 check. The check went into the United Health lockbox. Lockbox personnel deposited the check and scanned the letter into the company's tracking system. When a company investigator received a notification the next day, he sent a letter to low T rejecting the settlement offer. Lott's response. Too late the case was settled. When you deposited the check, the trial court agreed with low T citing the principle of accord and satisfaction. The court of appeals affirmed one way to develop a good reputation if the Washington State AGS allegations are correct. Seattle area plastic surgery practice. All lure aesthetic had a crackerjack idea for developing a first rate reputation. First, the practice required patients, some 10,000 of them to sign NDAs before even being treated. Second, the NDAs prohibited them from posting any reviews lower than four stars. Third, if patients refused to remove unflattering reviews, the practice threatened to sue them. Fourth, it bribed patients to provide good reviews. Fifth, it kept patient rebates without patient consent. And sixth by personal favorite, it photoshopped before and after photos to improve outcomes complaint department. This month's complaint department addresses the ever widening meaning of the term. X EX used to indicate two people who used to be romantically connected but are not anymore. For decades, maybe centuries, if two people were exes to each other, that meant they had been married, but were no longer married. So if I read in a reputable newspaper or magazine that A was the acts of B, that meant they were married but are not anymore like Lucy and Desi. And although I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, that's how I interpreted the term until quite recently. So I found myself often thinking, gee, I never knew those two had been married. Well, I finally figured out that they hadn't. They were exes merely because they used to be in some sort of romantic but unofficial relationship. And that's the problem. What sort of relationship was it? Did they live together? Were they engaged? Did they merely date exclusively, non exclusively? And is there a statute of limitations? A length of time before two people stopped being exes? If my colleague dated a woman in college 30 years ago, is she still his ex? Should I avoid inviting her to a party? If my colleague is going to bring his wife? I say, let's go back to the old days when it was clear who was and who was not an ex. If you have a complaint, send it to me. Well, that's it for this month's edition. I hope you liked it. I'll be back next month with another edition of the Lighter Side of Health Law.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe to A H L A speaking of health law wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about a H L A and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit American health law.org.