Holland & Hart Healthcare Law Blog

INTERNET MEDICINE PART III: FTC issues Notice of Rule Regarding Breach of Security of Personal Health Records.

There is a growing proliferation of on-line personal health records companies who undertake to warehouse and store personal health records for  consumers on line. Four of the most  prominent of these companies are Google Health, Microsoft Health Vault, RevolutionHealth Health Records and WebMD Personal Health Records. On April 20, 2009, the FTC took a first step in providing notice of breach standards for these companies by offering a proposed rule for public comment. The Rule will be available for public comment until June 1, 2009, with the intent to make the final rule effective in September, 2009. The Proposed Rule can be found at 74 Fed. Reg. 17914. and is slated to be included in the Code of Federal Regulations at 16 CFR § 318. The FTC's action is a mandate under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

INTERNET MEDICINE PART II: PHYSICIAN CHAT ROOMS

One of the growing phenomena related to the practice of medicine and the internet is the introduction of physician chat rooms in real time on the web. In new forums like Sermo, approximately 90.000 physicians can currently log on line and discuss clinical issues in real time and obtain broad based input and support and advice from other physicians with respect to clinical issues. This is a form of social networking for physicians. Among the potential benefits of the forum is the ability to compare notes and to alert others to sudden distortions in the health of local populations due to flu or other causes, and the sharing of what works and doesn’t work in clinical practice. 

INTERNET MEDICINE – PART I: The New Concierge Practice.

President Obama’s strong support for the proliferation of Electronic Medical Records (“EMR”) notwithstanding, there remains enormous residence to the digitalization of medical documentation by many physicians who have been in practice over ten years. That resistance is based on cost, complexity, utility, inertia and fear.  The array and diversity of systems available on the market are intimidating. There is always the concern about selecting a “Betamax” system over a “VCR” or a “HD” over “Blue Ray.” When is the right time to invest in expensive technology when change is unfolding with such rapidity?  Are the “bells and whistles” useful or a distraction?  Will it make a physician’s life easier or more difficult?   What is the paradigmatic practice model to adopt to maximize the efficient utilization of the potential of telemedicine?

CHILD MEDICARE SUIT MAY PROCEED IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Senior U.S. District Judge Malcolm Howard recently ruled that a motion to dismiss a class action brought by the defendants in McCartney v. Lanier Cansler, Secretary North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, No 7:08-CV-57-H(3), must be denied. The plaintiffs claim that they were denied access to mental health and developmental disability benefits without a prompt hearing and that the defendant failed to adopt reasonable standards for implementation of its Medicaid program.  The three minor plaintiffs through their parents as next of kin brought the class action to restore the children’s rights prospectively. They are not suing form damages.

TIME TO REMOVE PROFIT FROM HEALTH CARE FINANCE?

The recent controversy of former Washington Post Reporter T.R. Reid’s abrupt exit and excise from Nightline’s “Sick Around America” program that ran on March 31, 2009, underscores a growing debate in the U.S. as to whether President Obama’s healthcare reform proposals are, in the words of Mr. Reid, “tinkering around the edges” of the problem, or whether core health care reform will be addressed.

I ESCAPED FR0M A RAC [AUDIT]- A GUEST ARTICLE.

[Todays post is by Joan c. Ditges, RN, the principal in Legal Nurse Associates, Inc. a consulting company engaged in Medical Record Reviews, Summations and Analyis  and a consultant to this firm]

CMS couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate month for the initial nationwide roll out of the Recovery Audit Contractor permanent program. March is the month when many, even non sport’s fans,  are consumed by college basketball’s March Madness and find it difficult to concentrate on little else. March is the month when we begin escaping from the confines of winter as we get our first glimpses of spring only to be fooled by a late March snowstorm that seemingly blew in from no where and caught us totally unprepared. March is also the first month of the Roman Calendar and is named after Mars, the god of war. How apt that the RAC foot soldiers should wage war on our healthcare providers in March, some of who are consumed by a similar March madness in frenzied preparation for auditors, others who were lulled by the inactivity of winter and will be unprepared when the blizzard that is RAC blows into their facilities and practices.