Effective July 1, 2018, Senate Bill 97 creates a mandatory requirement that a health provider that diagnoses or provides treatment to a patient with Parkinson's disease must report each case of Parkinson’s disease to the California Department of Public Health.

In part 1 of our article for Healthcare Risk Management (HRM), we outlined the issues of informed consent and informed refusals and what steps to take to protect your practice. In part 2 of our article, CAP’s Risk Management and Patient Safety Department will list the strategies and safeguards to have in place when working with advanced healthcare professionals.

Gordon Ownby, general counsel of the Cooperative of American Physicians, offers examples of litigated cases which may have been avoided had physicians trusted their initial instincts in treating their patients.

When reporting their findings, it is common to see consulting physicians recommend further testing. Absent such an explicit recommendation, a patient’s decision to bypass conservative measures can spell trouble for all.

Telemedicine is the practice of medicine using electronic communication, information technology, or other means, between a physician in one location and a patient in another location with or without an intervening healthcare provider.