A new Virginia law governing collaborations between nurse practitioners and doctors leaves unresolved key legal issues in team-based care, including those pertaining to medical malpractice and liability and anticompetitive practices.
The use of coded patient data for reimbursement purposes can tempt clinicians to exaggerate the severity of the patient's condition, skewing the accuracy of the data and interfering with clinical decision support and research.
Incarcerated pregnant women are shackled while giving birth and routinely separated from their children immediately, which in many states leads to permanent termination of parental rights.
Punishing women who use drugs during pregnancy deters them from seeking prenatal care and entering drug treatment programs, and the relevant policies may unfairly target poor or minority women.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The individual mandates and the optional Medicaid expansion will begin on January 1, 2014.
Those charged by the ACA health reform act to identify best clinical practices that are evidence-based and applicable across diverse populations can learn much from the experience of the Medicare-funded End Stage Renal Disease Program.