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The HIPAA Conformance Certification Organization says its Common Compliance Assessment Process determined that, on average, the nations leading HIPAA translation and validation vendors agree in their interpretation of compliance 43% of the time, up from an average of 35% on all transactions in 2003.
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A physician in California physician recently sued the Florida Medical Association in Tallahassee and three other doctors in an effort to fight what he says is an attempt to discourage doctors from testifying against others in medical malpractice suits.
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A practice of 150 obstetrician-gynecologists in Connecticut is planning to charge an extra $500 per pregnancy starting Sept. 1 in response to its high medical liability premiums, even though the state attorney general say such a surcharge probably is illegal.
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A health care attorney cautions that you should not rush to use liability waivers until you have confirmed that your informed consent processes are the best they can be.
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A poll released in March by the Health Coalition on Liability and Access reveals that Americans believe a growing crisis in health care liability is pushing health care costs up and forcing good doctors out of medical practice.
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A Dallas County, TX, jury has awarded an $8 million verdict to a woman and her husband after a group of doctors and other medical professionals failed to diagnose the womans breast cancer for more than a year after she discovered a lump in her breast.
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A patient alleged that an equipment technician sexually assaulted her. After reporting the situation to several nurses, the patient was given medication to calm her, and she was discharged quickly thereafter. A Texas jury awarded the patient $300,000 based on the hospitals failure to provide treatment.
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Youre fed up with being dragged into every lawsuit that has even the slightest connection to your institution, so you daydream about having patients just sign a waiver up front promising to never sue you for anything. Nice fantasy, but those things dont really hold up in court, do they?
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Liability waivers are best used for voluntary activities or when patients refuse your clinicians advice, says Jeffrey Driver, JD, MBA, chief risk officer with Stanford (CA) University Medical Center and president of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management in Chicago. He suggests these categories.
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A closely watched case in Connecticut has some observers worried that health care providers will be discouraged from reporting information about physicians to state boards, other monitoring groups, and even a hospitals internal peer review system.