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In assessing liability for any injury or loss of life during an evacuation, a key question will be whether the organization followed instructions from the local authorities, says Kevin Lyles, JD, an attorney with the law firm Jones Day in Columbus, OH. Lyles co-chairs Jones Day's health care practice and oversees the firm's privacy practice.
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Responding to the dilemmas faced by hospitals hit by Hurricane Katrina, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued a step-by-step guide called Standing Together: An Emergency Planning Guide for America's Communities."
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For any claims arising after an evacuation or disaster involving your organization, the key issue may be whether you prepared as well as you should have and then executed your plan effectively. To determine that, experts say courts may rely on the Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery Checklist: Beyond the Emergency Management Plan" issued in December 2004 by the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) in Washington, DC.
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News: A young female patient was burned and suffered nerve damage after trichloroacetic acid was improperly used instead of acetic acid during her colposcopy. She sued for damages and was awarded $500,000 for pain and suffering.
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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Mark McClellan said the federal government will not process incoming non-HIPAA-compliant Medicare claims submitted for payment on and after Oct. 1, 2005. That decision ended a portion of CMS' HIPAA contingency plan that was in effect since October 2003, under which Medicare continued accepting noncompliant claims after the deadline.
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The Department of Health and Human Services published in the Sept. 23 Federal Register a proposal for adoption of standards for certain attachments to electronic health care claims under HIPAA. The proposed standard would require doctors, hospitals, and other covered entities to use certain transactions, messaging standards, and a new code set when they electronically request the additional information and provide the information in response to the request related to health plans processing claims.
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Increased salary levels may indicate that risk managers finally are being paid more after years of taking on additional duties, according to the results of this year's Healthcare Risk Management Salary Survey.
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The exclusive 2005 Healthcare Risk Management Salary Survey was sent to 1,173 readers in the July 2005 issue. A total of 161 were returned, for a response rate of 14%. The results were tabulated and analyzed by American Health Consultants, publisher of HRM.
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The story hits the news every once in a while, but it always seems like such an extreme case: A hospital staffer confesses to killing multiple patients over time, usually with fatal injections and often under the pretense of a "mercy killing."
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Creating a better defense against health care workers who would harm your patients means working closely with your human resources department, but prepare yourself for a challenge.
