09-29-2009 Kaiser Foundation Hospitals – Santa Clara (Kaiser), California, agreed to pay $100,000 for allegedly violating the Patient Anti-Dumping Statute on two separate occasions. On both occasions, Kaiser failed to provide appropriate medical screening examinations and stabilizing treatment. On the first occasion, a 15-year old presented to Kaiser’s emergency department (ED) doubled over, crying and … Read more
In April, the OIG announced a settlement with a Georgia Hospital for requiring a patient to pay an up-front charge before being seen for a medical screening examination. OIG settlements are “contested” in the sense that the hospital does not agree that they did anything wrong or what they were alleged to have violated. The … Read more
09-02-2008 St. Francis Medical Center (St. Francis), Missouri, agreed to pay $20,000 to resolve its liability under section 1867 of the Social Security Act (Act), 42 U.S.C. section 1395dd, the Patient Anti-Dumping Statute. The settlement resolved allegations that St. Francis failed to provide stabilizing treatment to a patient, prior to discharging her, that presented to … Read more
In a little noticed rule change buried in 1500 pages of regulations set to go into effect August 1, the CMS rules on admissions terminating EMTALA appear to be getting a major change. The CMS regulations currently state that EMTALA ceases to apply to a patient who is admitted in good faith with the expectation … Read more
The Dallas Star is reporting that a contractor for Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth breached the HIPAA confidentiality of 277,000 patients when it failed to properly destroy microfiche records dating from 1980 to 1990. The microfiche films turned up in a community park. The report did not indicate just how the records came … Read more
It has been a while since this question came up, but since I received it today, I want to share the answer that I gave to the facility. I advise against blood pressure checks in the ED, but most people do them anyway. CMS basically says that you can give blood pressure checks in the … Read more
Just a note to tell you that the HIPAA Deskbook is back online at Amazon. You can access it through the Publications link on this site.
The federal District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia has ruled that the state’s certificate of merit requirement for medical malpractice cases does not apply to EMTALA cases. The Court ruled that the state rule directly conflicts with EMTALA by setting up hurdles to the filing of the EMTALA action that are inconsistent … Read more
A Colorado District Court has dismissed an EMTALA claim upon a finding that the physician and hospital did not violate hospital medical screening policies and was not aware of the patient’s emergency medical condition upon discharge. A 13 year old girl presented and received a medical screening examination from the ED physician. Upon reaching a … Read more
Do you know whether your server firewall is on? Well, somebody better know, or it could cost you a fine of $400,000 just like it cost the Idaho State University last month. The HIPAA fine was assessed by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) for 17,500 patient records that were left exposed when the firewall … Read more