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...
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health: Abortion Laws and How Physicians Can Protect Themselves
The recent decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health by the U.S. Supreme Court has pushed the issue of reproductive health back to state legislators. As each state grapples with how it will deal with this issue, it has created tremendous uncertainty for the physicians who serve those communities. Physicians are caught in an impossible situation of trying to care for their patients while operating within the law – with boundaries that are less clear and well-defined as they have been for the past 50 years. As we have for the past 47 years, MIEC will continue to stand with...
Healthcare has a lot of moving parts that rely on multidisciplinary teamwork, communication, and process. When there is a disruption in any one of these areas it can have a compounding effect that leads to frustration, workarounds, and sometimes patient harm. Communication failures continue to be one of the leading causes of sentinel events, which brings us to safety huddles. Daily safety huddles, present an opportunity for staff to flag unsafe conditions and take proactive steps to solve for and eliminate matters that pose a threat to patient safety (Vis, 2021). While safety huddles originated in hospitals, these meetings can...
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...