side note: Cyber liability is an emerging trend in medical malpractice insurance policies. As technology advances, and new government regulations require medical records to be both maintained in a digital format and electronically available to other doctors in the health chain, the chances of a privacy breech has increased dramatically. Many medical malpractice policies now […]

Side Note: Last week we talked about the uniqueness of the emergency room –specifically, how the acuteness of the patient’s situation, paired with the lack of a medical record, often produces a situation ripe with liability exposure and potential medical malpractice. Today, we face a similar situation –how pharmacists in New Hampshire are being allowed […]

Side Note: New Hampshire is the latest state to join the trend of allowing pharmacists to give more than just flu vaccinations. The new vaccines recently added by the state are the pneumococcal vaccine and the shingles vaccine. The pharmacists who administer them are required to undergo special immunization training and carry $1 million in […]

Side Note: Medical malpractice tort reform is good at accomplishing a lot of things: it can help keep the cost of medical malpractice insurance lower for physicians, it can help reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits, and it can help reduce the number of extra tests that physicians order to protect themselves in case they […]

side note: This is the Illinois story that keeps on giving. Last year, the Chicago Tribune did an investigative article where it was discovered an appalling number of Illinois doctors practicing with convictions on their record for sex crimes or violent acts against patients. This led directly to the passage and implementation of House Bill […]

side note: This article highlights the many medical malpractice risks that are inherent in electronic health records as physicians get used to employing them. It also notes that there is little legal precedence concerning these 21st Century risks. While much of the article is spent examining the risks and how to mitigate them, a Harvard […]

Side Note: Being a physician is getting more and more complicated thanks to technology –and, we’re not even talking about state-of-the-art medical advances or equipment. No, today we are talking about physicians being rated online and how they should respond to those ratings. In the era of online reviews for restaurants, plumbers, professors and products, […]

side note: Here is a type of case that I expect to become more prevalent in the future. As the United States battles an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, more medical malpractice claims against doctors prescribing (or over-prescribing) potent opiod pain medication are likely to be filed. How liable are doctors for patients that abuse […]

side note: This is a news story that caps the almost five-year saga where the Wisconsin Medical Society litigated for the return of $233 million the state took from the Wisconsin Patient Compensation Fund to balance its 2007 budget. A patient compensation fund is a state-run fund that the healthcare community pays into to keep […]