Quality Fraud and Patient Safety

Doctors who prescribe to people they’ve never met and care they never give. These claims go back to a Civil War era law designed to prevent the Government from being overcharged for military supplies. Now, the DOJ brings in billions of dollars every year for healthcare fraud. Here’s the link Physicians facing prison, fines, for […]

Quality Fraud: The Insurance Industry Gets It All Wrong

After lobbying legislatures for “tort reform” for decades, the number of medical malpractice claims – especially what they used to call “frivolous” claims – has gone down. Has that lowered rates for physicians? Of course not. But instead of accepting responsibility, the insurance industry now blames “nuclear claims” and other imaginary foes to explain their […]

South Florida Nursing School Sold Thousands of Fake Diplomas

This takes unlicensed practice to another, putting it on steroids. Unanswered in this story is how many patients were harmed by these unscrupulous academics and the fraudsters they set loose. Two nursing school operators in the Fort Lauderdale area have fessed up to peddling fake diplomas to thousands of students who could then avoid completing […]

How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them

Like the insured persons in the story below, follow your instincts when it comes to insurance claims you think have been improperly denied. If you suspect something, they probably are improperly denied. The rejection of van Terheyden’s claim was typical for Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers. The company has built a system that […]

Telehealth and Medical Malpractice Claims

Patients need to understand the risks and potential problems associated with telehealth visits to avoid additional injuries. Medical malpractice can become more of a danger than ever. UNDERSTANDING TELEHEALTH AND THE RISKS OF MEDICAL MALPRACTICE I had a case involving teleradiology services provided to an internal medicine practice from hundreds of miles away. The level […]

The Increasing Incidence and Cost of Medical Malpractice

  The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 raised the alarm while calling for urgent action to reduce patient harm in healthcare. The United Nations (UN) specialized agency stated that medical malpractice results in 2.6 million deaths annually. “Most of these deaths are avoidable. The personal, social and economic impact of patient harm leads to […]

Medical Malpractice Can Be Fatal

Preventable harm caused by health care providers to patients is the core mission addressed in a medical malpractice case. The need is greater now than ever. Due to the growing rate of medical errors and malpractice, scientists at Johns Hopkins in 2016 proposed it should rank as the third leading cause of death in the […]

Barriers To Quality Healthcare and How to Overcome Them

In my line of work, these kinds of cases often show up as patients who suffered adverse events because they “fell through the cracks” (an awful euphemism for getting substandard care). Our latest surveys of pharmacists, patients and providers to inform the upcoming 2023 Medication Access Report, support this. The surveys found that patients and […]

Medical Record Keeping Error

Transparency and patient safety are a problem in health care around the globe – not just in the US. In 2018, the largest peer review in NHS and Northern Ireland’s history identified numerous concerns regarding a neurology practice, including lack of proper clinical investigation, inaccurate diagnoses, poor prescribing practices, poor recording keeping, lack of openness […]