Admin, Author at Lawyers Blog

Are Hospital Errors Really Becoming Less Common?

March 16, 2019AdminMedical MalpracticeLeave a Comment

Given the unbearable costs hospital errors exact on our nation’s sick and injured population every year, it’s sometimes hard to muster optimism. However, a December 2014 report published by the Department of Health and Human Services suggests that medical workers and hospital safety experts may finally be winning the battle – or at least turning the tide.

The report said that “hospital acquired conditions” (e.g. staph infections caught in a hospital ER) declined over a three year period by 17 percent.
Medical errors, meanwhile, declined in practically every category.
IV blood infections, for instance, declined by almost 50 percent.
Bedsore ulcers — a plague that visits bedridden patients who are not moved frequently enough — declined by 20 percent.
Pharmaceutical errors also declined by nearly 20 percent.

The timeframe of the report covers 2010 to 2013.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine found that such errors killed approximately 98,000 people a year in the United States. Later analysis determined that number could be much higher.

Some analysts credit the decrease in errors to the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”), which incentivizes hospitals through the “Partnership for Patients” program. This policy has been associated with a reduction in re-admissions (by 18 percent as of early 2014). A pilot program run at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City found that a similar incentive system led to a drastic cut in re-admissions by over 40 percent.

However, an analysis published in 2012 in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that government incentives do not necessarily correlate with decline in certain hospital infections.

Hopefully, researchers will analyze this progress more carefully and help us uncover how to make hospitals safer and less error-prone.

Compound Pharmaceuticals: A Surprising Effect on Military Budget?

February 13, 2019AdminMedicationsLeave a Comment

Over the past several years, this blog has covered the under-reported but nevertheless widespread dangers associated with compound pharmacies.

A new published analysis suggests that compound pharmaceuticals may have cost the military’s Tricare program massively, creating a multi-billion dollar budget hole.

Compound pharmacies in theory sound excellent and effective. They merge multiple medicines to develop drugs that might not be available easily in commercial form. Unfortunately, the industry, due perhaps to lack of regulation, has been at the center of a serious investigation regarding improper marketing and pricing schemes.

Several years ago, private healthcare companies worked hard to eliminate or reduce this aggressive marketing, but military healthcare affiliates have just recently discovered that they have their own compound pharmacy problem. According to analysis, in 2010, the military spent $6.6 billion on pharmacy costs; only $23 million of that went to compound drugs. By 2015, the compound drug costs for Tricare (a military healthcare program) blossomed explosively to $1.7 billion. That constitutes a nearly thousand-fold increase in cost in just five years!

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Resource Management, Jon Rychalski said “it’s really unheard of to see this kind of a spike, and it threatens our program.” Noting that the average Tricare cost for compound drugs bumped from $192 to an astonishing $2,595, Rychalski observed that “unscrupulous people [are] out there taking advantage of this, heavily marketing in many different ways.”

Four defense committees in Congress are now well aware of these escalating drug costs — and obviously motivated to bring costs down to more reasonable levels — but policymakers still don’t know how, exactly, to get the Tricare budget under control.

Your Electronic Medical Records (EMR): How Safe Are They?

January 31, 2019AdminGeneralLeave a Comment

Electronic medical records are supposed to make healthcare more personalized, more convenient and more effective, but recent events show they may pose some very serious risks to patients, sometimes resulting in inaccurate diagnoses that could lead to poor outcomes and even death. Some errors have been so serious that they’ve led to malpractice suits that have settled for millions of dollars.

Errors occur for different reasons: First, matching records to the right patient can be problematic, even with a name and birthdate, since databases can be enormous. Many records are incomplete, including records only from certain providers, but leaving important gaps in care provided by healthcare providers that haven’t “gone digital.”

One of the most critical opportunities for error is in data entry. When systems are poorly designed or healthcare personnel are inadequately trained, serious errors can occur that can have a direct impact on the care you receive.

Incomplete records aren’t the only concern: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports more than 1,000 health record data breaches have occurred since 2009, potentially exposing millions of consumers’ data to identity thieves.

Why are hackers so interested in medical records? Simple: Most records contain names, addresses, birthdates, social security numbers and more – a rich treasure trove of information that can be sold for top dollar. And research indicates that medical facilities and the healthcare industry at large are far behind when it comes to using robust security measures to protect your sensitive information.

Despite these inherent risks, electronic medical records aren’t going to go away; in fact, their use likely will become much more widespread and pervasive. In our next blog, learn what you can do to protect yourself.

Insurance Industry Quashes Medical Malpractice Reform in California – Implications for the Rest of the Country

January 22, 2019AdminGeneral, Medical MalpracticeLeave a Comment

Few political issues have been distorted more than the concept of “medical malpractice reform.”

If you ask the average citizen what the consequences would be of raising medical malpractice damage caps, he or she would probably tell you the following:

Raising caps would threaten doctors and force them to practice “defensive medicine.”
It would also lead to spikes in insurance rates and put money into the pockets of lawyers at the expense of the citizenry.

But many respected studies and independent journalistic reports have shown, time and time again, that these fears are totally unfounded. They’re myths. But the insurance industry benefits from promulgating these ideas about medical malpractice reform.

Some voters, safety advocates and politicians (including California’s popular Senator, Barbara Boxer) believe that enough is enough. Golden State voters recently had a chance to vote on Proposition 46, a proposal that would have lifted a cap on medical malpractice damages. For almost four decades, that cap has stagnated at $250,000 without increasing or keeping apace with inflation. Voters ultimately defeated Proposition 46 on the ballot, thanks in part to a multi-million dollar “No on 46” campaign financed by insurance industry interests.

The measure would have also mandated drug and alcohol testing for doctors and forced physicians to refer to a statewide database before prescribing painkillers to their patients.

Bob Pack, who lost his two children (ages 7 and 10) after a nanny high on prescription medications ran them over in 2003, put the situation plainly: “insurance industry profits trumped patient safety.”

But the battle over Proposition 46 at least suggests that the timbre of the national debate has changed. Insurance companies are now on the defensive, and the myths about medical malpractice reform are slowly but surely fading in the light of objective media inquiry.