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If an emergency physician (EP) decided not to prescribe opioids for a patient after learning from a prescription drug monitoring database that the patient had just received a two-week prescription for the same medication from another provider, could the EP be successfully sued for failure to treat?
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Lab work was ordered for a patient who presented to an ED after having experienced her first seizure, but it wasnt reviewed until after the patient was discharged.
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It is important that the medical community understands that the cardiology and cardiac surgery communities are confronting end-of-life issues and the need to make appropriate treatment decisions based on an assessment of the likelihood that it will make a difference in a positive way, usually in a frail, sick, elderly patients life, argues Patrick OGara, MD, FACC, president-elect of the American College of Cardiology and executive medical director of the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston.
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Many providers and health systems are unaware of the opportunity to leverage payment reform to develop or align community-based resources in order to provide better care and more support to patients post-discharge under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to James Corbett, JD, MDiv, a fellow at Harvard Medical Schools Division of Medical Ethics and Vice President of Community Health and Ethics at Steward Health Care System in Boston, MA. They may not connect that payment reform presents a tremendous opportunity, he says.
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A growing number of states are promoting Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) Paradigm Programs, with the goal of helping physicians to better respect their patients wishes for end-of-life care.
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Would you expect that offering state tax incentives or credits would increase organ donation?
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The relief of suffering, including suffering from untreated pain, is fundamental to the idea of ethical practice in medicine, according to Nancy Berlinger, PhD, a research scholar at The Hastings Center in Garrison, NY.
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Bassett Medical Centers readmission reduction project has resulted in a reduction of up to 70% among highest-risk patients.
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Beginning Oct. 1, 2012, more than 2,000 hospitals serving Medicare patients began losing reimbursement under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) readmission reduction program, which penalizes hospitals experiencing excess 30-day readmissions for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia. The average penalty is about $125,000.
