nursing homes – Overlawyered

States ordered nursing homes to take COVID-19 patients, cont’d

Walter Olson — Sat, 09 May 2020 15:59:56 +0000

“States ordered nursing homes to take COVID-19 residents. Thousands died. How it happened.” We previously linked to earlier reporting on this remarkable set of decisions, with a focus on New York and New Jersey, but this report adds much detail as well as updating the ghastly toll. “Strikingly, Italian officials issued similar orders for nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients on March 8, a move under investigation by authorities for contributing to potentially preventable deaths, according to the Associated Press.” [David Robinson, Stacey Barchenger and Kelly Powers, USA Today Network, and Jo Ciavaglia, Bucks County Courier Times (Pennsylvania)]

More: Jim Geraghty rounds up many states’ problematic policies.

Tags: COVID-19 virus, New Jersey, New York, nursing homes, Pennsylvania

States ordered nursing homes to take COVID-19 patients, cont’d is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 06 May 2020 10:13:30 +0000

“Unthinkable”: Cuomo executive order protects New York medical professionals from liability for much care extended during the emergency [Robert Gavin, Albany Times-Union] Will liability capsize the nursing home business? [AP/WBFF, Maggie Flynn/Skilled Nursing News; Lydia Wheeler and Valerie Bauman, Bloomberg]
To raise hospital capacity, flatten certificate-of-need laws [Matthew D. Mitchell, Thomas Stratmann, and James Bailey, Mercatus, earlier]
Cato Daily Podcasts with Will Rinehart on regime uncertainty for developers of COVID-19 tests and Jeffrey Singer on telemedicine, hosted by Caleb Brown;
As virus cut swath through nursing home population, states like Virginia and Maryland cited health privacy laws as reason not to release data breakdowns [Kate Masters, Virginia Mercury] “And, despite not knowing what threat the [info would be used] for, the group had pre-emptive ethical clearance to immediately gather samples from patients – something which would take weeks or months in other countries.” Seems to have served Australians well [Tyler Cowen]
From early in crisis: ways in which feds relaxed hospital rules [Valerie Bauman and Lydia Wheeler, Bloomberg Law]
Some pre-crisis links: “Must an employer pay for medical marijuana? Apparently yes – at least in New Jersey.” [Alexander Castelli, LexBlog] “The ACA Expanded Insurance Coverage of Contraceptives. Prices Soared.” [Michael Cannon, Cato at Liberty] Vaccines, birth control, Accutane: as plaintiff’s lawyers kept winning, the public kept losing [Beck]

Tags: Andrew Cuomo, COVID-19 virus, hospitals, nursing homes, privacy

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Russian roulette” in nursing home placements

Walter Olson — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 04:05:07 +0000

State authorities in New York, New Jersey, and California direct nursing homes to take in COVID-19 patients, even if they’ve otherwise managed to keep the virus out. Connecticut and Massachusetts instead designate some facilities as being for patients with the novel virus. At least one group of states, it would seem, is making a mistake [Kim Barker and Amy Julia Harris, New York Times; Bernadette Hogan and Bruce Golding, New York Post]

Tags: Andrew Cuomo, COVID-19 virus, nursing homes

“Russian roulette” in nursing home placements is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Judge excoriates DoJ in False Claims Act case

Walter Olson — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 05:15:11 +0000

Problems with applying the whistleblower law that has been described as a “cash cow” for the U.S. Department of Justice [C. Ryan Barber, NLJ]:

A federal magistrate judge has struck a key witness and ordered the U.S. Justice Department to pay legal fees to HCR ManorCare Inc., one of the country’s largest providers of skilled nursing facilities, for alleged missteps in a case the government touted in the crackdown on fraud in the health care industry. “I don’t think this case should have ever been brought,” a federal magistrate judge in Virginia said at a recent hearing. “I have looked at this stuff, and I’m appalled, I’m embarrassed, I’m ashamed that the Department of Justice would rely on this kind of nonsense.”

Earlier on qui tam and the False Claims Act here. [& followup, Toledo Blade: feds drop case]

Tags: nursing homes, qui tam, whistleblowers

Judge excoriates DoJ in False Claims Act case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 09:58:54 +0000

Bill advancing in California legislature would authorize jail for nursing home staff who “willfully and repeatedly fail to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns” [Eugene Volokh, SB 219]
“The FDA cannot get out of its own way on the issue of off-label communications.” [Stephen McConnell, Drug and Device Law Blog first and second posts]
Public health covets territory of other studies and disciplines, part CLXXII [British Medical Journal on American College of Physicians’ resolution declaring “hate crimes” and “legislation with discriminatory intent” to be public health issues]
Podcast on battle between Vascular Solutions and the FDA [Federalist Society with Howard Root and Devon Westhill]
Policy U-turns needed: “Deregulation and Market Forces Can Lower Pharmaceutical Prices” [Marc Joffe, Reason]
Florida Supreme Court ignored market history in striking down noneconomic damages limits in medical malpractice awards [Robert E. White, Jr., Insurance Journal and Andrew S. Bolin, WLF on North Broward Hospital District, et al v. Kalitan]

Tags: California, FDA, Florida, hate crimes, medical malpractice, nursing homes, pharmaceuticals, public health

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 10:40:38 +0000

“Judge Says He’s Had Enough Of Weeding Through Baseless Lawsuits, Threatens Sanctions” [Daniel Fisher; M. D. Georgia judge on vaginal mesh cases]
More on pricey regulated generics [Scott Gottlieb/WSJ, earlier on EpiPen, more on latter from Joel Zinberg/City Journal]
Feds ban pre-dispute arbitration agreements in nursing home care [McKnights]
How Ronald Reagan’s FDA responded to the AIDS crisis — and it’s probably not the story you’ve heard [Peter Huber, City Journal; see also from Carl Cannon in 2014]
FDA regs likely to winnow smaller, distinctive makers from the cigar business, recalling a Somerset Maugham story [James M. Patterson] Debunking the “Helena miracle,” once more: no link between local smoking bans and short-term drops in heart attacks [Jacob Sullum, earlier here and here]
“Ethicists make the case for bone marrow transplantation markets” [Ilya Somin]

Tags: AIDS, arbitration, FDA, nursing homes, pharmaceuticals, smoking bans, tobacco

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 04:05:38 +0000

FDA to dental consumers: you can’t handle the tooth [New York Times via Alex Tabarrok]
“How lawyers scare people out of taking their meds” [Lisa Rickard (U.S. Chamber), Washington Post]
Lawsuits fail to bring improvements to nursing homes [ABA Journal]
“Everything,” new Institute for Justice short film about costs of regulating bone marrow donation, has upcoming screenings in D.C. area, Breckinridge, Colo. and elsewhere;
Aetna pulls out of most ObamaCare exchanges, and the acrimony flies [WSJ editorial] “Did the Medicaid expansion limit labor force participation?” [Tomas Wind via Tyler Cowen]
Posting will be slower in coming weeks as I conduct my own in-person investigation of the state of America’s medical system. Thanks for bearing with me!

Tags: FDA, nursing homes, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Disabled rights roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 05:05:00 +0000

Effort to qualify California ballot initiative to curb state’s infamous ADA filing mills; Harold Kim (US Chamber) podcast on lawsuit abuse and small businesses;
Costly canines: Ohio’s Kent State will pay $145,000 for not letting two students have emotional support dogs in housing [Insurance Journal]
USC football coach Sarkisian and alcohol: “Lessons In Disability Accommodation and the Interactive Process” [Nancy Yaffe, California Employment Law]
“Does ADA require nursing homes to admit obese patients?” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal]
“It’s difficult to think of a piece of legislation that failed more abysmally than the ADA. So now what do we do?” [Scott Sumner; we’ve been on the post-ADA decline in labor force participation by the disabled for a long, long time]
After football player collapses on field with heat stroke, resulting in nine-day coma that brings him near death, team doctor refuses to clear him to play again due to re-injury risk; Fourth Circuit reverses lower federal court that had ruled for his claim of disability discrimination [Gavin Class v. Towson University, opinion]
Second Circuit: hearing-impaired IBM employee can’t get to jury after rejecting sign-language translation and transcripts of company videos as reasonable accommodation on the ground that captioning would have provided overall nicer experience [Wait a Second! via Daniel Schwartz]

Tags: ADA filing mills, disabled rights, football, Maryland, nursing homes, obesity

Disabled rights roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 04:05:56 +0000

Med mal something of a regional problem: nearly half of payouts are in Northeast, with New York alone paying out more than the entire Midwest [New Jersey Civil Justice Institute on Diederich Healthcare analysis] “Neurosurgeons were 50% more likely to practice defensive medicine in high-risk states compared with low-risk states” [Smith et al., Neurosurgery via NJCJI]
New Paul Nolette book on state attorneys general Federalism On Trial includes history of suits led by New York’s Eliot Spitzer to redefine as “fraud” widely known drug-pricing practices that Congress had declined to ban or otherwise address. The resulting lucrative settlements also earmarked money to fund private critics of the pharmaceutical industry;
City of Chicago signs on to one of the trial bar’s big current recruitment campaigns, suits seeking recoupment of costs of dealing with prescription opioid abuse [Drug & Device Law; earlier here, here, here]
We here in Washington, D.C. take very seriously any violations of HIPAA, the health privacy law. Just kidding! If a union supporter pulls information from an employee medical database to help in an organizing drive, that might be overlooked [Jon Hyman on National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge decision in Rocky Mountain Eye Center]
“Preferred Care defendants respond to New Mexico Attorney General’s lawsuit, argue it was filed at urging of Cohen Milstein law firm” [Legal NewsLine]
Philadelphia police run warrant checks of hospital visitor lists, and as a result many persons with outstanding warrants avoid going to hospitals. So asserts sociologist Alice Goffman in her book On the Run, but the evidence is disputed [Sara Mayeux last August, Steven Lubet in review challenging the book more broadly on ethical and factual grounds, Goffman’s response]
Making contraceptive pill available over the counter without prescription should please supporters of birth control access, right? Funny you should ask [Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason, earlier]

Tags: attorneys general, Chicago, defensive medicine, Eliot Spitzer, HIPAA, medical malpractice, New Mexico, New York, nursing homes, opioids, pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Update: jury acquits man charged with sex with demented wife

Walter Olson — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 13:15:44 +0000

Updating our earlier report: “A jury found a longtime Iowa state lawmaker not guilty of sexually abusing his wife who suffered from dementia, in an unusual case that centered on when a person is no longer mentally capable of consenting to sex.” [KWWL] More: NYT Room for Debate.

Tags: crime and punishment, Iowa, nursing homes, sexual assault

Update: jury acquits man charged with sex with demented wife is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system