Practice Management News and Education

In partnership with the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM), we are celebrating Healthcare Risk Management Week! This week brings awareness to the critical role healthcare risk management and patient safety professionals play in improving patient and workplace safety, promoting quality assurance, and minimizing liability exposure for involved clinicians and practices.

As a physician, you handle patient diagnoses with due diligence, taking the right steps to consult with peers, order the right tests, analyze results, and offer the best guidance for safe and effective treatments. Yet, many physicians do not practice the same diligence when safeguarding themselves or their livelihoods.

Physicians come out of medical school highly educated and anticipating a career that will be rewarding in every way — including monetarily. Not surprisingly, this makes them perfect targets for people who sell life insurance. But what life insurance agents know that most doctors don’t is that there are a wide range of life insurance products available – and that the most expensive, most profitable products may not be the best ones for every doctor in every situation.

The Digital Revolution has changed and is continuing to change medicine. There are many drivers of these changes: digital/technological advancements, changing demographics, and societal shifts to digitization. In response to this changing landscape, CMS modernized its Medicare physician payment plan and quality reporting program effective January 1, 2019.

To describe homelessness as a “complicating factor” in healthcare is a gross understatement; the homeless die nearly three decades earlier than the general population and their health challenges are innumerable.ⁱ Addiction, mental illness, malnutrition, exposure to a host of infectious diseases related to overcrowding, poor hygiene, a lack of sanitation and IV drug use as well as the threat of violence, routinely undermine the health and wellbeing of this population.  For the homeless, healthcare access is at best-episodic and is often driven by the need for urgent treatment.

Even as the Medical Board of California continues to examine the drug-prescription practices of physicians, the Board often has to convince a court of its right to examine patient records. The key element in whether the courts will permit an MBC request for patient records is whether the Board adequately demonstrates “good cause” for piercing a patient’s privacy. 

In a recent release, the California Labor Commissioner's Office reminded employers they must maintain valid workers' compensation insurance coverage for all workers, including part-time employees.

 It’s no secret that healthcare workers are at an increased risk for needle stick or sharps injuries, especially nursing staff, doctors, and lab workers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 needle stick injuries occur each year, many going unreported.

California law provides that any adult patient and any minor patient authorized by law to consent to medical treatment, is entitled to inspect and request a copy of their medical record upon written request to the healthcare provider and payment of reasonable costs to make the record available.  (California Health and Safety Code Section 123110)

Medical malpractice lawsuits are no longer based solely on medical errors or missed treatments. Many of these cases are becoming more about the experience of the patient: how he or she feels, and whether he or she felt they were treated fairly or felt mistreated. Here are some tips to mitigate risk and strengthen the patient experience.