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Four federal tort reform bills that could affect medical liability law have passed the House of Representatives in the first session of the 115th United States Congress, with an additional medical liability bill having been introduced in the House.^1,4

The decision to begin a business philanthropy effort as part of your practice is a very personal one, both in the desire needed to take it on and in the causes you select. But if you’re a practice owner, it’s also a business decision because you need to be mindful of how it will impact your bottom line. Cash donations add strain to already tight budgets, and even organized volunteering is likely to take up some of your staff’s time to coordinate sign-ups, rally the troops, and select organizations to work with.

Whether it’s a hurricane, an earthquake or secondary damage from a fire, many disasters involve extensive water damage to paper and electronic records. How you handle recovering water-damaged records is critical to ensuring the most complete recovery possible. Below are recommendations for what to do — and what not to do — as part of your disaster recovery.

Physicians need to be especially careful when managing chronic pain with opioid medications. Medical practices often seek risk management advice when they suspect a patient is misusing prescription medications, is not complying with treatment, or when the patient is making unreasonable demands for more opioids. If a patient suffers harm as a result of opioid medication use, a physician may become the target of a lawsuit alleging negligent treatment of chronic pain.

A comatose, ventilator-dependent, car accident victim lies in an intensive care unit while her husband and her parents discuss her future quality of life and argue about what type of care she would have wanted. This scenario may initially come to mind when the average person hears the term medical ethics. However, the concept of medical ethics is much more common in everyday practice than a dramatic ICU clash is.