Choosing a Doctor: Board Certification Important But Misunderstood

When it comes to choosing a doctor, consumers say bedside manner, communication skills and board certification matter most. Those are the findings of a new survey released by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), a not-for-profit organization that oversees the board certification process of physicians in the United States. According to the survey, more than nine out of 10 Americans consider communication skills and board certification more important than a doctor’s hospital affiliation, place of training or office location, with 95 percent of respondents naming communications skills and bedside manner as the most important physician traits, and 93 percent naming board certification. Although the survey results indicated that the vast majority of Americans think board certification is important, the survey also found that most people don’t understand what board certification is. That’s an important distinction, says ABMS president and CEO Kevin B. Weiss, MD. “Sixty percent of those surveyed incorrectly believe that a doctor has to be board certified to practice medicine, and only 45 percent had ever checked to see if their doctor is board certified,” said Dr. Weiss. “Board certification is actually a voluntary process that goes above and beyond what is required by law for a doctor to practice medicine. That means patients can be sure that any doctor who is board certified by an ABMS Member Board is committed to lifelong learning and the highest standards of care in his or her medical specialty.”

Please click on the link below to read the Spotlight on Health article:

http://www.napsnet.com/articles/59391.html

The Citron Law Firm, P.A. (www.citronlegal.com) is a civil trial practice law firm that specializes in professional liability and injury cases, commercial and real estate litigation and family law matters.  The Citron Law Firm is located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at 707 S.E. Third Avenue, Sixth Floor – (954) 712-1686.

Solving The Mystery Of The Missing Doctors in Florida

Have you seen them? They used to be among us. They used to be in your neighborhoods. We depend on them for our very life; from the day we’re born till the day we die, inclusive; and there are fewer and fewer in Florida. I am speaking about your doctors. The Florida health care task force knows that there are 54,000 licensed physicians in Florida, and as pointed out in a recent response to an earlier column, that translates to an increase each year keeping up with the Florida population. The numbers alone are very deceiving, however. The numbers don’t tell you that 25 percent of these licensed physicians do not even live in Florida. The numbers don’t tell you that 26 percent of the total are part-time physicians practicing less than 20 hours each week. Additionally, some 13 percent of Florida doctors say they plan to leave the state or reduce or end their practice over the next five years. Thirty-two percent of physicians in Florida were approaching retirement age (ages 55 and over) in 2004. That leaves somewhere between 27,000 and 34,000 full-time equivalent doctors caring for 15 million Floridians, a number estimated to be 50 percent too little. Current Department of Health data show that over half of active, licensed Florida physicians are over 50 years of age. More than 22 percent are older than 65. Some trial attorneys will lay blame wherever they can to deflect their own involvement in the disappearance. They blame public policy in 1970, or various organizations, or blame it on national trends; but the reality is that your doctors are leaving in part because of the legal system. And I know where they are going. Florida now has seven medical schools because the Legislature is aware of the shortage of physicians. It approved three new schools in the last five years. Florida ranks 41st in the number of medical students per capita and 46th in the per capita number of medical residents. But neither Gov. Charlie Christ nor state lawmakers can make the new doctors stay in Florida. We can pay for medical student training at a cost of about $250,000, and they burden themselves with another $200,000 of debt only to leave Florida at the rate of 86 percent.

Please click on the link below to read the Tampa Bay Online article:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/sep/17/na-solving-the-mystery-of-the-missing-doctors/

The Citron Law Firm, P.A. (www.citronlegal.com) is a civil trial practice law firm that specializes in professional liability and injury cases, commercial and real estate litigation and family law matters.  The Citron Law Firm is located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at 707 S.E. Third Avenue, Sixth Floor – (954) 712-1686.

X-Ray Spots Colon Cancer, Report Says

A federal study of an X-ray alternative to colonoscopies confirms its effectiveness at spotting most cancers. Medicare is already considering paying for this cheaper, less intrusive option that could persuade more people to get screened for colon cancer. In the study, the largest of its kind, the “virtual colonoscopy” identified 9 out of 10 people who had cancers and large growths seen by regular colonoscopies. But the X-ray test’s real value may be in showing who really needs a regular colonoscopy — it was better at ruling cancer out than it was at detecting it, suggests the report in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. Colonoscopies cost up to $3,000. The X-ray test costs $300 to $800.

Please click on the link below to read the New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/18brfs-XRAYSPOTSCOL_BRF.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin

For more information on The Citron Law Firm, P.A., please contact Howard Citron at  – www.citronlegal.com.

Texas Doctors Laud 5 Years of Medical Malpractice Relief

Doctors here and across Texas said dollar limits on medical malpractice lawsuits put into state law five years ago have made a big difference in how they practice medicine. The reduced threat of frivolous malpractice lawsuits have made doctors more willing to accept high-risk patients, and have helped bring more doctors into Texas, including to El Paso, the Texas Medical Association found in a recent online survey of 1,391 Texas doctors. Almost 90 percent of the doctors responding to the survey said they felt more comfortable practicing medicine in Texas now than before medical liability laws changed in September 2003, the TMA reported.

Please click on the link below to read the El Paso Times article:

http://www.elpasotimes.com/business/ci_10457409

For more information on The Citron Law Firm, P.A., please contact Howard Citron at  – www.citronlegal.com.

Study Finds Few Pain Doctors Face Criminal Prosecutions

A new study has found that doctors are rarely criminally prosecuted or sanctioned in connection with the prescribing of narcotic painkillers. The study, published this month in the journal Pain Medicine, found that 725 doctors, or about 0.1 percent of practicing physicians, had been prosecuted or sanctioned by state medical boards between 1998 and 2006 on charges arising from illegally or improperly prescribing narcotics. Of that group, 25 doctors specialized in pain treatment. “The widely publicized chilling effect of physician prosecution on physicians concerned with legal scrutiny over prescribing opioids appears disproportionate to the relatively few cases,” the study reported. The study was undertaken by the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, Mo., the Federation of State Medical Boards and the National Association of State Attorneys General. The study’s authors acknowledged that their review, while extensive, did not account for prosecutions against doctors brought by state and local law enforcement officials.

Please click on the link below to read the New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/us/20pain.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=health&adxnnlx=1222172532-I0/v02DXel1/5qsTtigYIA

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Liability Cap Could Be Tested in Deadly Metrolink Crash

Compensation awards to victims of Friday’s Metrolink train crash could easily overwhelm a $200-million cap that Congress imposed 11 years ago on a railroad’s liability in any one accident. The limit, adopted as part of the reauthorization of Amtrak in 1997, has never been tested on constitutional grounds, and lawyers and legal scholars differ in their predictions of whether the government will prevail in restricting payouts. Based on recent wrongful death and catastrophic injury awards in the range of $5 million to $10 million, the amount of damages likely to result from the latest crash — which left 25 dead and 135 injured — could for the first time exceed the congressional cap, said Brian J. Panish, who represents a dozen victims of the 2005 Metrolink crash near Glendale and was retained Tuesday on a Chatsworth liability case. He criticized the damage limit as part of the federal government’s “bailout” of Amtrak and said Metrolink should waive the cap to ensure fair settlements for all involved. “They’re responsible. They should compensate the victims,” he said.

Please click on the link below to read the Los Angeles Times article:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-trainlegal17-2008sep17,0,3206727.story

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Small Patients, Big Consequences in Medical Errors

When 6-year-old Chance Pendleton came out of surgery for a wandering eye, it was obvious that something was not right. “He was crying hysterically, vomiting and kept saying, ‘I wish I was dead,’ ” his mother, Grace Alexander, of Paris, Tex., recalled. The boy had been through surgery before and had never reacted this way. “The nurse was quite peeved and wanted me to calm him before he disturbed anyone,” said Ms. Alexander, who said Chance was denied more pain and anti-nausea medication. “She thought he was just throwing a tantrum.” After about 20 minutes, another nurse walked by, and Ms. Alexander beckoned her for help. The nurse checked the intravenous line in Chance’s ankle and saw that it wasn’t inserted correctly. He wasn’t receiving any medication. She immediately fixed it, bringing relief to Chance in a matter of seconds. Medical mistakes, though also common in adults, can have more serious consequences in children, doctors say. The actor Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins nearly died last year after receiving 1,000 times the prescribed dose of a blood thinner. Other infants have died from the same error. A study in the journal Pediatrics in April found that problems due to medications occurred in 11 percent of children who were in the hospital, and that 22 percent of them were preventable. An Institute of Medicine report nearly a decade ago highlighted the prevalence of medical errors, and they are still a major problem. “There’s been slow progress in the decline of these errors,” said Dr. Peter B. Angood, chief patient safety officer of the Joint Commission, the independent hospital accreditation agency. The agency recently called on hospitals to further reduce medication errors in children. Children are also the victims of diagnostic errors, incorrect procedures or tests, infections and injuries. Medical errors pose a greater threat to children than to adults for a number of reasons. They are physically small, and their kidneys, liver and immune system are still developing. Even a tiny increase in the dose of medication can have serious effects — especially in babies born prematurely. And if children take a turn for the worse, they can deteriorate more rapidly than adults. Children also are less able to communicate what they are feeling, making it difficult to diagnose their problem or know when a symptom or complication develops.

Please click on the link below to read the New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/health/healthspecial2/15mistakes.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

What’s in a Name? When It Comes to Drugs, Plenty

You say tomato, I say tomahto. Which is all well and good as long as we’re talking about fruits and vegetables — but not so good if the nurse says “fentanyl” and the hospital pharmacist hears “sufentanil,” as happened to one patient preparing for an endoscopy. The patient, given an opioid about 10 times more potent than the one prescribed, ended up in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The problem of sound-alike/look-alike drug names and its close cousin — plain old mispronunciation — abounds. The dilemma would almost be comical, except that people can die. “[Mispronunciation] is more than a challenge, it’s also a danger,” said Robert Stanberry, assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Texas A&M Health Science Center Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy. “If you pronounce it wrong, you may end up with the wrong drug,” added Marilyn Storch, coordinator for all patient safety projects and the health care quality and information department at U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), the official “standards-setting” authority for medications, dietary supplements and other health-care products sold in the United States. And more words — and syllables — are entering the drug world all the time. “As drugs proliferate, they start to sound alike, like Celexa and Celebrex,” said Dr. Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. “It’s just going to get worse with increases in the number of drugs and in the number of unfamiliar names.” Also, bear in mind that for countless physicians, many medications that they were trained to pronounce and prescribe when they were in medical school are no longer used, Kennedy added. The Celexa/Celebrex combination is a classic example, but there are others. Losec, for heartburn, was confused so often with Lasix, a diuretic, that the name was changed to Prilosec. But now that gets confused with Prozac, according to a USP report. And the Alzheimer’s drug Reminyl was changed to Razadyne after mix-ups involving Amaryl, which lowers blood sugar. The mix-ups reportedly resulted in two deaths. And what about names that are just too long? The generic name for Flurizan, an investigational Alzheimer’s drug, is tarenflurbil. “It’s almost too many syllables to pronounce,” Kennedy said. Does anyone know how to pronounce bapineuzumab, another investigational drug for Alzheimer’s? The report issued earlier this year by USP on the relationship between drug names and medication errors reviewed more than 26,000 records. It found almost 1,500 different drugs implicated in medication errors as a result of names that looked or sounded alike. The drugs in question added up to 3,170 pairs, double the number of pairs found in a 2004 report. According to the document, 1.4 percent of the errors resulted in patient harm, including seven that may have played a part in patient death.

Please click on the link below to read the Health Day article:

http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=617849

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Toys ‘R’ Us Gets Tough with Cribmakers

Toys “R” Us Inc., one of the nation’s biggest retailers of nursery furniture, is forcing cribmakers to build sturdier products to avoid a potentially deadly hazard. Asserting that government and industry safety rules don’t protect children from the hazard, Toys “R” Us is dictating stricter tests and design standards that cribmakers have balked at for years. The company, which also owns Babies “R” Us, has the clout to do so because it sells so many cribs—hundreds of thousands annually. Toys “R” Us is specifying the trees its suppliers can use, the way they attach spindles to crib railings and even the type of glue. Manufacturers that don’t follow the new rules can’t sell cribs in its stores. The move by Toys “R” Us shows that major retailers, responding to parents’ concerns, are using their purchasing power to redefine the safety of children’s products—more quickly and more stringently than government regulators and groups that set standards for the industry.

Please click on the link below to read the Chicago Tribune article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-cribssep04,0,3920863.story

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Plantation, Florida May Require Microchips for Aggressive Dogs

Looking to rein in out-of-control pets, the Plantation City Council is considering embedding a microchip in any dog classified as aggressive and requiring them to attend obedience training. The city also may expand the definition to include dogs that approach people in a “menacing fashion.” The city first crafted a law on aggressive dogs in 2006. It spells out penalties and requires that dogs labeled aggressive be registered with the Police Department and confined at all times. Since then, the City Attorney’s Office said two dogs were voluntarily removed by their owners and another two forced out. Councilwoman Diane Veltri Bendekovic said the numbers may be slightly higher.

Please click on the link below to read the Sun Sentinel article:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbdogbite0905sbsep05,0,1588111.story

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

A Study Revives a Debate on Arthritis Knee Surgery

A study has found that surgery is no better than more conservative treatment to relieve knee pain caused by arthritis. In the study, being published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, 86 patients who had the operation fared no better over two years than 86 who had physical therapy and took medications to dampen inflammation. The results of the study are in line with those from a study published in 2002. But experts are divided about what effects the two studies will have. Some say the new study just confirms what they already knew. Others say they hope that doctors who did not believe the 2002 study will be persuaded by this one to stop doing the operations. The 2002 study, by the Department of Veterans Affairs, had a different design: instead of assigning patients to surgery or medical treatment, it assigned them to real surgery or a sham operation. The real surgery was found to be no better than the sham one. That study was denounced by many orthopedic surgeons, but Medicare decided in 2003 to stop paying for the operation. Still, because doctors can be reimbursed for the procedure by modifying what they say is the patient’s problem, it is not clear whether most doctors stopped doing the operation, or how many such operations are being done. There is no national system for keeping track. The surgery involves making small incisions in the knee, inserting an arthroscope to see the joint, and then flushing debris from the knee or shaving rough areas of cartilage and cleansing the joint.

Please click on the link below to read the New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/health/research/11knee.html?_r=2&ref=health&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Damage Cap Credited for Drop in Texas Malpractice Premiums

Thanks to a tort reform law in Texas, physicians in the Lone Star State will have reduced liability premiums, officials said this week. The board of the Texas Medical Liability Trust recently approved an average rate reduction of 4.7 percent for TMLT-insured physicians beginning next year. Renewing policyholders will also receive a 22.5 percent dividend. “This is the fourth consecutive year the Trust has announced a policyholder dividend,” said Fields. “The 22.5 percent dividend is the largest percentage dividend in the Trust’s history,” said Bob Fields, president and CEO of the Texas Medical Liability Trust.

Please click on the link below to read the Legal Newsline article:

http://www.legalnewsline.com/news/215496-damage-cap-credited-for-drop-in-texas-malpractice-premiums

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Texas: Challenges to Medical Malpractice Law and Damage Caps

In 2003, Texas approved a constitutional amendment limiting non-economic damage in medical malpractice cases to $250,000 for physicians. Since then, liability insurance rates have fallen and doctors have flowed into the state, changes physicians attribute to the 2003 med mal reforms, which limit non-economic damages, but don’t cap economic awards. In fact, Texas physicians have seen a 24 percent overall drop in medical liability rates since 2003. And medical license applications jumped 58 percent since 2003, from 2,561 to 4,041. Now, however, opponents of the cap have taken their case to federal court, asking to have it declared unconstitutional. They’re arguing, among other things, that the Texas law violates patients’ jury trial and due process rights by setting an arbitrary recovery limit. The case is now pending in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. These opponents argue that any proposed benefits from access to care from caps shouldn’t trump patients’ legal rights. Meanwhile, they note that prior to the 2003 caps, many carriers had increased rates by as much as 150 percent, a rise that hasn’t even been covered yet.

Please click on the link below to read the Fierce Healthcare article:

http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/tx-may-change-medical-malpractice-law/2008-09-02

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Tennessee: Lawsuits Could Force Hospitals To Disclose Doctors’ Status

Two recent Tennessee Supreme Court cases could affect the way local hospitals handle their admissions procedures, said local attorney Barry Shanker of Bass, Berry & Sims PLC. The cases allege medical negligence and malpractice by physician contractors and have been sent back to the trial courts. They might proceed to trial or be settled out of court. The state’s high court said the hospitals involved had not done enough to let patients know the accused doctors were contractors instead of employees. Therefore the hospitals should be held accountable. “This ruling ultimately is important because plaintiffs’ lawyers are trying to hold the hospitals liable for any type of negligence or malpractice by a physician and that imposes additional, essentially unknown, amounts of liability on the hospital,” Shanker said. At most local hospitals, patients may sign a paper informing them of the relationship, but some may not even realize how important it is. And the basis of the hospital/physician relationship is vital in case something goes wrong and a lawsuit is filed later.

Please click on the link below to read the Memphis Daily News article:

http://www.memphisdailynews.com/editorial/Article.aspx?id=38517

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Texas Licenses a Record Number of Doctors

After facing a statewide doctor shortage for years, the Texas Medical Board said Monday it issued a record number of medical licenses this past fiscal year. The 3,621 doctors licensed in fiscal 2008 beat last year’s record-setting 3,324. The number of licenses issued in the state has jumped almost 44 percent in two years, according to the medical board. The board had grappled with a surge in applications that created a backlog of more than 2,000 applicants seeking a medical license to practice here. But the board said it changed its rules to speed up the process and got state funding to hire six extra workers. There’s debate on what ignited the surge in applications. In a report to be released today, the Texas Medical Association makes the case that the surge can be attributed to the medical malpractice lawsuit limits passed by the Legislature in 2003. The Texas Alliance for Patient Access, a nonprofit coalition of health care workers, found that 21 rural Texas counties have added at least one obstetrician – including 12 counties that previously had none – since passage of the law.

Please click on the link below to read the Dallas News article:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/090908dnbusdocapplications.1839664.html

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Doctors Sued for Prescribing Painkillers to Woman Who Crashed Her Car

A woman wrecked her car, killing an innocent bystander. Now the bystander’s widow is suing the woman’s doctors, arguing that they should have warned her not to drive while taking the pain medicines they prescribed. The driver, Jane Berghold, crashed her car through a hospital entrance last year, killing two people. She has pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and settled a civil lawsuit. At the time of the crash, she told police she was undergoing chemotherapy but that her treatment didn’t affect her driving. But a lawyer representing the family of one of the people killed in the wreck says that Berghold, who is 77, had complained to doctors repeatedly about being light-headed and dizzy from the medication. “Mrs. Berghold should have been told not to drive,” the lawyer said. “And if she was advised, according to her, she would not have driven. And she wouldn’t have driven to Brockton Hospital, through the front doors, hitting my client and leaving a widow behind.” This case follows a ruling that came down last year from the Massachusetts Supreme Court allowing a similar lawsuit to proceed. Docs in the state don’t like it. “It’s reasonable to hold the doctor liable for those things that confine within the patient, doctor relationship, but anything beyond that is inappropriate and excessive,” said the president of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Please click on the link below to read the Wall Street Journal article:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/09/05/doctors-sued-for-prescribing-painkillers-to-woman-who-crashed-her-car/

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

North Carolina: Law Could Reveal Medical Malpractice Payments

In about a year, people across North Carolina will be able to go online and see whether their doctor or a doctor they’re considering seeing has made medical malpractice payments, if rules developed by the N.C. Medical Board are implemented. The rules, which could face legislative review next year, would require doctors and physician assistants to report all malpractice payments made after Oct. 1, 2007, that are greater than $25,000. The board’s rules, which have already gained the approval of the Rules Review Commission, which monitors administrative rulemaking in state government, have faced sufficient opposition to delay implementation until the General Assembly has enough time to take a look at them.

Please click on the link below to read the Shelby Star article:

http://www.shelbystar.com/news/malpractice_33315___article.html/payments_medical.html

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Lawsuit Fears Drive Doctors to Play it Safe; Costs Mount as Physicians Order More Tests, Referrals

Dr. Michael Rosenberg can’t help but look at some of his patients and wonder if someday they’ll sue him for medical malpractice, potentially putting his livelihood as a plastic surgeon in jeopardy. “In the course of deciding what’s really best for your patient and what you want to do, sometimes you find yourself thinking, ‘How could I possibly be second-guessed?’” Dr. Rosenberg said during an interview at his office in Mount Kisco, N.Y. Many physicians say that in trying to treat their patients, they practice ‘defensive’ medicine — over-ordering tests, over-referring patients to specialists, or over-prescribing medication — only to fend off lawsuits in case something goes wrong.Doctors say they are in a difficult position because they want to protect themselves against legal vulnerabilities, and at the same time not over-prescribe expensive medical testing such as MRIs and CAT scans, which insurers monitor for unnecessary usage. “Sometimes we end up being in a position where we feel like we have to do things a little more defensively than would be ideal in the best of all possible worlds,” said Dr. Rosenberg, the president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. ‘Where that comes in is the test that should be ordered every 12 months but is ordered every six months, or the antibiotic [prescribed even though] maybe you’d ideally wait a day and see if it is necessary.’ A 2005 study of 824 Pennsylvania doctors showed that 93 percent of respondents reported that they sometimes or often practiced ‘defensive medicine,’ according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, released earlier this year, placed the amount spent by physicians practicing defensive medicine at $210 billion.

Please click on the link below to read the Toledo Blade article:

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080824/NEWS32/106232055

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Applications Pour In for First Class at Free Medical School

Deborah German hopes to have 100 applicants for every spot in the first-ever class at the University of Central Flordia’s medical school — and she’s already most of the way there. German, the dean of UCF’s nascent med school, is offering an astonishingly potent lure in an era of crushing student debt: Four-year scholarships for tuition, fees and living expenses for every member of the first-year class. As of this morning, the school had received 2,996 applications for its charter class of 40, which will enter next year. That’s a ratio that would be the envy of the deans at the nation’s top medical schools. The application period started a few months ago, and it runs through December. While there will be some scholarships for students in subsequent classes, the first class is likely to be the only one to get the free-for-all deal. And German was careful to add that the stipend for living expenses — $20,000 per year — won’t have students living in luxury on philanthropists’ dime.

Please click on the link below to read the Wall Street Journal article:

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/09/08/applications-pour-in-for-first-class-at-free-medical-school/

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.

Who Pays for Efficiency in the Health Care Industry?

Indeed, the quest to save dollars in the nation’s $2.1 trillion annual health care bill is becoming a lucrative market of its own. Thousands of companies, large and small, are pitching cost-saving ideas that range from electronic patient records to new medical devices. It’s not all marketing hype. Experts in health policy agree that there is a real opportunity to curb health spending, which last year was the equivalent of $7,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. Studies predict a gain of as much as 30 percent in efficiency, mostly through reducing unnecessary tests and prescriptions, paperwork and medical mistakes. Such streamlining would not cut the nation’s total medical spending, as long as there is a growing aging population with ever-increasing health needs. But certain measures are expected to help keep costs from spiraling. Every cost-saving product or service requires an upfront investment, which bets that it will produce overall savings. And so the paradox kicks in. “There is money to be saved, but it is not going to be cheap,” said David M. Cutler, a health economist at Harvard University. The path to saving can be particularly uncertain in the United States’ fragmented health care economy — a mix of risk, regulation and profit in which the incentives are often contradictory. A physician, for example, may try new approaches to trim the costs of providing care, but the results usually benefit insurers more than doctors. Strides in efficiency may be good for society, though there may be scant financial motivation for the doctors themselves.

Please click on the link below to read the New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/business/businessspecial3/11save.html?_r=1&ref=businessspecial3&oref=slogin

For more information on defending medical malpractice and nursing home matters in Florida contact Howard Citron at The Citron Law Firm, P.A. – www.citronlegal.com.