COVID-19: What Medical Inquiries Can Employers Make?
3/16/20
By: Jennifer Markowski
Last week, Brad Adler, addressed FAQ’s (and Answers) for Employers Dealing with the Coronavirus, COVID-19. Subsequent to that article, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Consequently, employers should follow …
Some Potential Certainty in an Outcome in an Uncertain Medical Malpractice World
7/12/19
By: Shaun Daugherty
Medical malpractice claims can be dangerous in front of a jury and some recent Georgia verdicts are proof of that. In Georgia, as many other states, medical doctors typically have consent clauses in their professional liability policies …
Amendments make the difference for opioid prescription writers in the recently passed House Bill 551
4/25/19
By: Shaun Daugherty
Several years ago in Georgia, the Legislature passed a law requiring anyone with a DEA registration number to enroll and become a user of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (“PDMP”) no later than January 2018. For those …
Office of Inspector General Approves Warranty Program for Medical Device Manufacturer
11/5/18
By: Ali Sabzevari
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General recently approved a medical device manufacturer’s proposed warranty program, which provides a refund to the hospital at which a patient underwent joint replacement surgery using the …
PUNITIVE DAMAGES: How Much Is Too Much?
11/1/18
By: Rebecca Smith
On August 10, 2018, in the first Roundup cancer lawsuit to proceed to trial, a jury awarded Dewayne Johnson a total of $289 million dollars. On Monday, October 22, 2018, a San Francisco Superior Court Judge refused …
Is Wellness Activity Participation Compensable?
9/25/18
By: Joyce Mocek
The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued an opinion letter on whether employees must be compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for the time they spend participating in wellness activities. In this inquiry, the employer …
If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say….You Probably Shouldn’t Post It!
8/22/18
By: Shaun Daugherty & Samantha Skolnick
Mothers all over the world have admonished their children: “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” It may lose something when translated into some obscure dialects, but the …
Georgia Prescription Drug Monitoring Program – The Last Deadline Approaches
6/27/18
By: Shaun Daugherty
For those of you that have not been residing off planet these last few years, you know that there is a lot of coverage of the opioid “crisis” across the United States. Many states have taken steps …
Ordinarily, Is It Professional Negligence? Georgia Supreme Court Thinks So In $22 Million Reversal
4/17/18
By: Shaun Daugherty
The Georgia appellate courts have addressed the issues between claims of ordinary and professional negligence in medical malpractice cases for a number of years. The standards for liability are distinctly different, but in certain factual scenarios there …
Arbitration Clauses Are Only As Good As the Signatory’s Power to Bind, Obviously
11/29/17
By: Shaun Daugherty
A name is just a name when it was found on the signature line of an arbitration agreement between a Tift County Georgia nursing home and one of its residents. A U.S. District Judge in the Middle …
Medical Expert Witness Reports in California: When to Produce Them…and When Not To
9/20/17
By: Jon H. Tisdale
We are all familiar with the mandate that a defense medical examination report, the so-called “IME”, must be produced upon written request by the patient’s attorney. California law requires production 30 days after the demand (or …
Informed Consent! What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing. Say It Again.
8/4/17
By: Shaun Daugherty
Ok. That may be a bit extreme. After all, it is in the American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics and the concept is addressed in most medical professional organizations guidelines in one form or another. …