Patient Privacy Category Archives — Page 2 of 5 — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

November 26, 2018

With these holiday gifts, health-conscious may need to add dose of skepticism

Holiday gift-giving can be expensive, so the health-conscious may wish to exercise skepticism about some potential purchases with dubious or unexpected consequence.

If you’re considering forking over more than a few dollars, think twice about:

So-called “tall” or “standing” desks. They were supposed to be a response to growing research about workers’ heightened health risks from sitting all day long. But studies show that standing while working with a computer isn’t as beneficial as some advocates may have claimed. That’s because it isn’t exercise or movement — which was supposed to the point of promoting healthier workplace practices, such as getting up from the desk and walking around every few minutes rather than becoming sedentary on the job. Studies, in fact, show that workers who must stand all day suffer health harms, like varicose veins and more. Some employees with posture issues may benefit some from standing and not scrunching themselves up while sitting at a desk. For most of the rest of us, it does matter to get up, exercise, and move. A fancy desk isn’t necessary for that, right?

October 31, 2018

Why are doctors and hospitals still bungling patients’ records requests?

by Patrick A. Malone

Uncle Sam more than ever wants it to happen, and patient advocates are pushing hard, too. So, why, when technology can make it easier than ever to do so, must patients struggle still to get easy, convenient, low- or no-cost access to invaluable electronic records about their own health care?

Judith Graham, a columnist focusing on aging issues for the Kaiser Health News Service, has written a timely, troubling update on perplexing challenges consumers still confront when trying to secure their electronic health records (EHRs).

She cites a study recently published by Yale researchers who gathered information from 83 leading hospitals that purport to assist their patients with EHR access. The experts swept up policies and forms the institutions said patients would need, then contacted them, telling hospital staffers not that they were academic researchers but that they were checking on behalf of an elderly relative in need of their records and how soon and how difficult and costly might it be to get them? This is an everyday dilemma for consumers, and the institutions should have dealt with these requests with ease and alacrity.

October 11, 2018

Congrats on the raise. Too bad it’s gone already. For health insurance.

by Patrick A. Malone

As various news organizations reported, anxious Americans will vote in less than a month with health care as a dominating concern. A new annual report shows why: Medical costs keep rising, as does the cost of health insurance, notably the coverage most of us get from our employers. Companies keep pushing on to workers higher premiums and deductibles that race ahead of inflation and devour wage growth.

Deductibles — the out-of-pocket costs that patients must pay before their coverage kicks in and benefits them — have skyrocketed since 2008, growing by 212 percent. That’s eight times faster than wage growth, and 12 times faster than inflation, according to the latest research by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The average deductible, $303 a decade ago, now has hit $1,573 for single coverage.

September 23, 2018

Hospitals slammed for ventures that exploit patients and violate their privacy

by Patrick A. Malone

Big hospitals can’t exploit patients and violate their privacy by throwing open their facilities to Hollywood for television shows that plump institutions’ reputations. And academic medical centers need to think twice before letting their leaders strike cozy deals to enrich a choice few insiders by hawking important diagnostic information collected with best intentions by medical staff from patients for decades.

The roster of hospitals dealing with black-eyes from recent negative news stories about their activities includes well-regarded institutions in Boston and New York — Boston Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Federal regulators busted the Boston hospitals with fines settled for just under $1 million for “inviting film crews on premises to film an ABC television network documentary series, without first obtaining authorization from patients,” reported the U.S. Health and Human Services’ department’s Office of Civil Rights.

August 16, 2018

Lax oversight and safety nightmares burgeon with boom in surgical centers

by Patrick A. Malone

An innovation in medical treatment — which was supposed to offer more affordable, accessible, and even convenient care — instead may be getting swamped with safety problems that long have plagued hospitals and academic medical centers.

USA Today and Kaiser Health News Service deserve credit for digging into patients’ nightmares with specialized surgical centers, not only those performing “routine” procedures but also those handling increasingly longer, more complex, and difficult operations. The many surgeries, once the province only of big and well-staffed hospitals, put patients at risk, the newspaper reported, saying:

[Our] investigation found that surgery centers operate under such an uneven mix of rules across U.S. states that fatalities or serious injuries can result in no warning to government officials, much less to potential patients. The gaps in oversight enable centers hit with federal regulators’ toughest sanctions to keep operating, according to interviews, a review of hundreds of pages of court filings and government records obtained under open records laws. No rule stops a doctor exiled by a hospital for misconduct from opening a surgery center down the street.

August 9, 2018

For sick seniors, hospitals and nursing homes can be nothing but bad news

by Patrick A. Malone

In many parts of the developing world, families play a big part in patients’ hospital care. They not only sit for long hours with loved ones, supporting and encouraging their recovery. They also may help with direct services, bathing and cleaning patients, tending to their beds and quarters, and even assisting with their medications and treatments.

Such attentiveness from loved ones— once common in this country, too — may be deemed by many now as quaint and unnecessary, what with the rise of big, shiny, expensive American hospitals.

But think again: As Paula Span reported in her New York Times column on “The New Old Age,” care-giving institutions across the country have become such stressful, disruptive places that seniors, especially, not only heal poorly in them but also may be launched into a downward cycle of repeat admissions.

July 31, 2018

Patients? We’re just profitable bit$ and byte$ to Big Pharma and insurers

by Patrick A. Malone

Big Data may be a business buzzword that puts most consumers into a big sleep, but big alarms are sounding for Americans about Big Brother intrusions into their lives via the collection and analysis of vast amounts of highly personal information. Of course, Big Pharma and medical insurers are at the fore of invasive practices — some of which patient-consumers themselves are helping, likely without knowing they’re doing so.

Millions of Americans may be little aware, for example, that they’re now working for GlaxoSmithKline, a global pharmaceutical conglomerate with $9 billion in revenues in just the most recent quarter. GSK just struck a $300-million deal with 23andMe, the company that has persuaded roughly 5 million consumers to spit in a test tube to get a glimpse of their genetic information, notably information about their ancestry and purportedly some of their genomic health risks.

Firms like 23andMe, with promotions at events like Baltimore Ravens pro football games, also have amassed highly personal genetic and medical data on millions of patient-consumers, promising to protect the information but also offering, casually and by the way, that this vital information could be shared — ostensibly for the betterment of public health.

July 27, 2018

Wrestler scandal fuels rising concern on how schools, teams protect kids

by Patrick A. Malone

Soon, many young people will be back to school and signing up for sports teams. Many will have to undergo physical exams before they can play. And it’s a tragic reality that grown-ups may need to think a lot how to protect young people from sexual predators who also are doctors.

That’s because Ohio State University, sadly, has joined the University of Southern California, Michigan State-USA Gymnastics, and Penn State University in the notoriety of dealing with a sexual abuse scandal involving adults and students. In the case of the Buckeyes, it’s Big Ten male wrestlers.

OSU said it had hired an outside law firm to investigate the allegations against Richard Strauss, who had blue-chip credentials and served as the team doctor to university wrestlers roughly from 1979 to 1997. The doctor killed himself in 2005. Lawyers interviewed more than 200 one-time OSU students, with 100 of them accusing Strauss of sexual misconduct, “including former athletes from 14 different sports teams.”

June 1, 2018

Stars helping to shed a light on struggles with mental health

by Patrick A. Malone

With all the excesses, abuses, and nonsense that pro athletes and pop stars can get into these days, it’s gotten rarer that commentators can point to positive actions these influential personalities can take. But a growing number of them deserve credit for publicly discussing their struggles with mental health issues, helping to reduce widespread stigma about them and to better the lives of their young fans.

The list of outspoken and helpful athletes and performers includes: Olympic legend Michael Phelps, National Basketball Association All-Star DeMar DeRozan of the Toronto Raptors, and NBA Cleveland Cavaliers superstar Kevin Love, as well as five-time Grammy winner Mariah Carey and actresses Catherine Zeta-Jones and Demi Lovato, and the late Hollywood icon Carrie Fisher.

Phelps and DeRozan bravely have discussed their problems with depression, which affects an estimated 16 million Americans annually and may be one of the most common mental health disorders negatively affecting the nation.

May 20, 2018

Dangerous doctors rip off Medicare, creep out coeds, harm transplant patients

by Patrick A. Malone

Callous institutional inertia can allow dangerous doctors to keep harming patients. But media digging deserves credit for raising needed alarms when professional caregivers and others fail to step up to protect individuals as disparate as taxpayers, seniors, coeds, and heart transplant recipients.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and MedPage Today performed a public service, reporting that they found more than 200 doctors nationwide who surrendered a license, had one revoked, or were excluded from state-paid health care rolls in the previous five years but somehow remained on the federal Medicare rolls in 2015.

This meant the problem doctors could keep bad practices afloat, in part because Uncle Sam ─ that’s taxpayers like you and me ─ paid these hundreds of MDs $25.8 million to care for seniors, among the nation’s most vulnerable patients.