Legal and practical healthcare information.
By Scott Roberts, Esq. In Michigan, the physician-patient privilege is a statutory privilege enacted to “protect the confidential nature of the physician-patient relationship.” While this privilege previously only extended to prevent physicians from disclosing patient information, a new Michigan Court of Appeals case seems to have changed this. In Meier v. Awaad, No. 310808 (Mich. …
Continue reading “Meier v Awaad: Extending the Physician-Patient Privilege Beyond Physicians”
By James M. Burns The FTC, together with the Idaho Attorney General, recently announced that they have filed an action in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho seeking to block St. Luke’s Health System from acquiring Idaho’s largest independent, multi-specialty physician practice group, Saltzer Medical Group. In announcing the decision to …
On March 26, 2013, the United States Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued a Special Fraud Alert (the “Alert”) specifically addressing its longstanding fraud and abuse concerns regarding physician-owned distributorships (“PODs”) that earn revenue from the sale of implantable medical devices (including those that design and manufacture such devices under contractual arrangement) while generally noting …