Commentaries

Question: A 15-year-old boy develops excruciating testicular pain from torsion of the testis. The family internist urged emergency surgery as recommended by the urologist, but the parents refused. Which of the following accurately describes the issue of consent?

A. Even if the boy nods in assent, this would be invalid consent as he is a minor.

B.... »

Two years from now, millions of previously uninsured Americans will gain health coverage through the Medicaid program. With that in mind, section 2701 of the Affordable Care Act instructs officials in the Health and Human Services Department to design a voluntary quality measurement program focused on the care of new adults coming into the program. On Jan.... »

Health Care Armageddon has finally arrived. Thank you, Washington.

Insurance companies and the government regulators who supervise them have come up with an ingenious scheme. It is really a perfect storm of goodies if you’re an insurance company: high premiums, high deductibles, and high copays, all of which equal nearly infinite profit. Brokers love it,... »

Question: A woman developed primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) 4 years after she had stopped using the prescription weight-loss drug, fenfluramine. The drug is known to cause valvular heart lesions as well as PPH. In a wrongful death lawsuit, her estate won a jury award of $1 billion in compensatory and exemplary damages. The defense appealed the size of... »

Prepare your practice for audits by independent contractors looking to profit from Medicaid fraud.

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Question: A physician injected silicone into a patient for purposes of breast augmentation, but used a preparation that was labeled "not for human use." The patient experienced inflammation, burning and discoloration, and subsequently developed chronic cyst formation in the breasts. In a lawsuit against the doctor, which of the following best... »

When Dr. Andrea Zaenglein was a medical student at Pennsylvania State University doing her dermatology rotation, she heard a presentation that changed the course of her life.

The chief of the dermatology department at Penn State at the time, Dr. Donald Lookingbill, shared his experiences working at the Regional Dermatology Training Center (RDTC) in Moshi,... »