The most valuable asset any physician has is time. This is true in terms of both his or her personal income, and also as pertains to the ability to help the community around him. So time management is amongst the most significant ways in which one can improve one’s practice. But neither doctor nor patient wants to be short-changed in an office visit. Here are a few suggestions on ways to optimize your time:
Legal
Everyday Legal Questions Physicians Ask
Can you prescribe for family? What happens if a payer demands a refund three years later? Our Legal Blogs tackle routine yet critical issues—self-prescribing, contract renewals, sham peer review defenses, and medical record ownership—using real complaints, board orders, and court opinions as teaching tools.
Current Cases & Court Commentary
When an appellate court clarifies peer-review immunity or a state supreme court limits punitive damages, we translate the opinion into practical next steps: adjust bylaws language, revisit informed-consent language, or refine incident-reporting practices. Posts avoid dense legalese and focus on how rulings might influence documentation, credentialing, and professional liability.
Contracts, Employment, & Corporate Practice
From negotiating call-coverage stipends to spotting restrictive non-compete clauses, articles guide physicians through employment and partnership contracts. We also examine corporate-practice-of-medicine rules, covering management-service agreements, fee-splitting prohibitions, and telemedicine ownership structures.
Licensure & Professional Discipline
The blog discusses board investigations stemming from social-media missteps, substance-use allegations, and documentation irregularities. We help physicians respond promptly, assemble supportive records, and protect due-process rights.
Administrative Law & Compliance Basics
Expect discussions of Stark, Anti-Kickback Statute safe harbors, Medicare enrollment revocations, and false-claims liability—presented with examples relevant to office-based specialists and hospital-employed physicians alike.
As a Doctor I’m Thankful for … Doctors
Doctors are also patients. If you’ve not been a patient, you will. My family and I have been patients. I am thankful for the doctors who have taken care of my family. This year, while finishing our dinner, my 13 year old son had a generalized seizure. Josh had been seizure-free for eight years. I … Read more
Promotional Guidance – FTC Update on Advertising Applies to Physicians with Online Presence
Florida Medical Magazine Winter Volume 2010, Number 1; Pages 29 to 31 By: Jeffrey Segal, MD, JD, FACS Michael Sacopulos, JD
Cell Phones, Heath Information and Physicians
Recently the Pew Internet and American Life Project released results of a study it had conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates between August 9th and September 13th of this year. The study looked at the use of cell phones to access health or medical information. Here’s what they found: 17% of cell phone users have … Read more
From Subprime Loans to Financing Lawsuits
Here’s history in the making.
At one time, before many of us were born, plaintiffs had to bankroll their own lawsuits. There, they would pay the attorney for his time and counsel. The plaintiff bore the entire risk for the outcome. But, if he won, he kept the entire pile of money, minus his expenses paid to the attorney.
The next – and dominant – paradigm: contingency fees. There, the risk is transferred to the attorney. In exchange for accepting that risk, the attorney keeps a healthy portion of any settlement / judgment after expenses. That amount is generally 33 to 40%. Naturally, the plaintiff’s attorney must diligently assess the risk / benefit for each opportunity. If the attorney loses, the plaintiff does not go bankrupt.
Enter the modern age.
Third party financing of lawsuits, as reported in the NY Times on November 15th:
More About Being an Expert Witness
By Joseph Horton, MD (This is a follow up to Dr. Horton’s earlier blog Patience is the Hunter’s Greatest Weapon) When I began my academic medical career, Chuck Kerber was with me when I was going over a talk I was about to give. I was understandably nervous about it. I set up the slides … Read more
Not Picture Perfect: Shark Bites and Lawsuits
Todd Murashige was surfing off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii on September 9, 2009. He was attacked by a 12 foot tiger shark. The injury to his leg was life threatening. Murashige was rushed to Queens Medical Center in Honolulu. While in the emergency room, he and his injuries were photographed. In a lawsuit filed … Read more
Patience is the Hunter’s Greatest Weapon
by Joseph Horton, MD
I was raised by a pair of criminal lawyers in New Orleans. Being raised by wolves is not intrinsically pleasant, but it does give one a certain sense of being invulnerable to specious attacks—like while being on a witness stand. The inevitable education about courtroom and trial procedure doesn’t hurt either.
Of the two, my mother was the litigator. Tiny in size (I’m 5’3” tall and I dwarfed her), in court she stood, oh, about 11 feet tall, breathed fire, and was bulletproof. It was not a good idea to cross her there—or anywhere else, come to think of it.* One of the things that she drilled into my head was the First and Second Laws of cross-examination.** The First Law is never to ask an opposing witness a question you don’t know how he’s going to answer. The Second Law covers what to do on the very rare instances when it is OK to ask a question you don’t know how they’re going to answer: refer to the First Law.
It always amazes me how many opposing attorneys missed that lecture. Probably half the time I’ve been to trial as an expert witness, I get asked a question that there is no way they can know how I’ll answer. My best guess is that they believe that, since I really am physically small (and gray and nebbish-looking), I can’t possibly help anyone’s case but theirs. Best bet is to look as unassuming as you can, and wait for the opening. (Remember that patience thing?) Then overwhelming force usually stops the attack.
A couple examples:
Curbside Consults are Kosher: A Breath of Fresh Air
How often are we told as doctors? You can’t do this. Don’t do that.
We are sometimes made to feel as if we are two-year-olds.
Now for the good news. An article published by Victor Cotton, MD, JD* pushes the opposite position. Curbside consults. If you follow the basics, you’re on safe ground. A breath of fresh air.
As a neurosurgical resident, we were cautioned to avoid curbside consults. Attending physicians admonished us to get the formal consult. At Ben Taub County Hospital, our service was busy. The internal medicine service was busy. Everyone was busy. The one commodity we did not have was time.
I was forced to use the following strategy to coax an internist to see my patient – one suffering from a head injury, in the Neuro-ICU, with a gazillion lines penetrating his skin and a blood sugar of 450.
“I know you are really busy and I hate to bother you. I have a patient with severe head injury and a blood sugar of 450. Do you give one amp or two amps of insulin?”
“What! Don’t do anything. We’ll see your patient in a matter of moments.”
Mission accomplished. The more stupid I sounded, the easier it was to get a consultant to the patient’s bedside.
That made no sense to me then. It makes no sense to me today.
When Experts Opine Outside Their Core Competence. The Lockerbie Bomber
We’re fans of the British professional liability system. Across the Pond, the loser pays the legal fees of the winner. Not surprisingly, there, medical malpractice cases are screened more diligently before going forward. The cost of getting it wrong is stiff.
So, what happened to the convicted Lockerbie bomber? His tale has nothing to do with medical malpractice, but everything to do with how “experts” can control the outcome of a legal case.
