As violence increases across the country, so too have acts of violence against healthcare providers. Unfortunately, this is not a new trend; polls conducted in 2014 and 2020 revealed that 71% of physicians and 82% of nurses reported having been targets of violence at some point in their careers, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that healthcare and social service workers are 5 times as likely to suffer a workplace violence injury than workers overall. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, this epidemic of violence has continued to worsen. An August 2022 poll conducted by the American...
Read the latest Update on Telehealth Prescribing Controlled Substances - June 2024 In response to the COVID-19 outbreak and escalating pandemic, in January 2020 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) declared a federal public health emergency (PHE) that is still in effect today. The PHE declaration resulted in numerous waivers of federal laws and regulations impacting the practice of medicine, including telehealth, HIPAA, scope of practice, and Stark laws. The PHE also provides healthcare providers with COVID-related liability protections under the PREP Act. Simultaneously, many individual state medical boards instituted waivers around licensure requirements for out-of-state physicians...
A variety of subjects impacting physicians were signed into law by Governor Newsom in 2021. Following is a sampling of new laws you should be aware of; all are effective January 1, 2022 unless otherwise noted. A comprehensive report on new healthcare laws is available from the California Medical Association. Electronic Prescribing Mandate This law (passed by the California Legislature in 2018) requires that almost all prescriptions written in California be transmitted electronically. The California Medical Association has published a description of the law, including the types of prescriptions that are exempt from the mandate. Does electronic prescribing trigger HIPAA...
“High-reliability” has been a buzzphrase in the healthcare industry for the last several years, but this safety movement is still gaining momentum. Many healthcare systems around the United States, including clinics, are taking steps to become high-reliability organizations. The high-reliability movement is largely based on safety principles developed in the nuclear and airline industries, where every employee is accountable for safety. These high-risk industries ingrain workplace safety into their culture primarily because, if an error occurs, the employee is likely to get injured – i.e., the pilot goes down with the plane. The stark difference in healthcare is that, if...
Review of Bohn v. Providence Health Services Lawsuit
The Alaska Supreme Court recently interpreted a portion of the Alaska Healthcare Decision Act under Bohn v. Providence Health Services – Washington. While this is the first time the Court has interpreted the HCDA, its decision focused on a single provision of the statute, AS 13.52.080(a)(3). This provision grants immunity to health care providers declining to comply with a person’s health care decision so long as the provider “acts in good faith and in accordance with generally accepted health care standards” and so long as the refusal to comply is “based on a good faith belief that the person then...