Medicine & the Law

Physicians in Pennsylvania now have the means to access documentation or recordings of their peer review proceedings, which should make it easier to substantiate allegations of bad faith and improper motive of the peer review committee members and to overcome the presumption of immunity.

The IRS’ Private Letter Ruling provides guidance on a number of physician recruitment regulations, including whether a hospital can assist an existing medical practice recruit a new physician and what are the limitations of "cross-town" recruitment.

The Office of Inspector General’s exclusion authority is quite broad and extends far beyond fraudulent billing and unprofessional conduct.

How can gainsharing programs be designed or existing programs untangled to comply with the OIG’s Special Advisory Bulletin outlawing traditional gainsharing arrangements?

Physicians and health care institutions that fail to adhere to their patients’ advance directives can be sued under various theories, including negligence and battery.

The OIG identified 17 specific risk areas as particularly appropriate for compliance focus, all of which potentially violate Medicare and Medicaid laws.

The managed care environment is fraught with liability risk right now, but exposure can be reduced in many cases without operational disruption.

There are a string of Pennsylvania cases addressing the issue of when a physician may have an obligation to a non-patient third party in the realms of mental health care and communicable disease transmission.

The ideal legal entity for a medical practice would shield physicians personally from practice liability, be nontaxable and be free of requirements, restrictions and limitations in co-ownership arrangements, formation and administration. Most of these objectives can be achieved in whole or in part.

A physician’s use of telemedicine poses a variety of new risks and questions of liability which do not occur in traditional medicine.