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By Catherine T. Hollis, J.D., The Health Law Firm and George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law In the November 2012, decision in Nath v. Department of Health , the Florida First District Court of Appeal analyzed an emergency suspension order ESO issued by the Florida Department of Health DOH . The Court had to determine whether an ESO served on an acupuncturist accused of inappropriate behavior was sufficient and proper under Section 120.60 6 , ...

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law Many health professionals don’t understand the significant repercussions that an exclusion action by the Office of the Inspector General OIG can have on the career and employment of a licensed health professional. Whether you are a physician, nurse, dentist, psychologist or other health professional, if you allow yourself to be excluded from the Medicare Program, devastating economic results may ...

The author of this is article is Fred Shackelford, a legal research attorney with National Legal Research Group in Charlottesville, Virginia. In many states, one of the elements of the tort of malicious prosecution is initiating or procuring the institution of a criminal proceeding. See generally Restatement Second of Torts § 653. This element focuses on whether the alleged tortfeasor had probable cause at the time he or she initiated or procured the criminal action against the plaintiff. W...

By Lance O. Leider, J.D., The Health Law Firm and Catherine T. Hollis, J.D., The Health Law Firm It seems the firefight between Walgreens and the Drug Enforcement Administration DEA has come to an end. On June 11, 2013, the DEA announced Walgreens agreed to pay $80 million to end an investigation into whether it violated rules on the distribution of prescription painkillers in Florida and throughout the country. According to the DEA, this is the largest settlement in its history. To read the pre...

By Christopher E. Brown, J.D., The Health Law Firm, and George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law More and more recently, we have seen government prosecutors and agencies, including the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit MFCU , the U.S. Attorney General’s AG Office, and local sheriff and police departments use the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act against health professionals and health facilities in health-related cases. A prompt, aggressive defe...

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law The Department of Health and Human Services HHS acknowledged the need for technical corrections to a ruling published as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA omnibus rule on January 23, 2013, according to a final rule published on the Federal Registrar. According to the HHS, the errors necessitating technical corrections contained in January’s final rule fall shor...

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law Many medical students and interns receive letters from the National Board of Medical Examiners NBME , United States Medical Licensee Examination USMLE Secretariat advising them that they are suspected of "irregular behavior" on a Step examination. Virtually any infraction of the USMLE rules contained in its Bulletin or the rules of the testing center can result in such an accusation. Although "irregula...

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law Patients with any metal-on-metal hip implant might want to discuss getting an MRI, even if they are not experiencing any discomfort. A medical study published in Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery suggests an MRI may be able to detect problems before any damage is caused from a hip implant. This can include hip implant failures and metallosis, or metal poisoning, from the chromium and cobalt ions in t...

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law The Health Resources and Services Administration HRSA announced that on May 6, 2013, the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank HIPDB officially merged with the National Practitioner Data Bank NPDB . The two data banks are now known as the NPDB. The HRSA published the final rule to eliminate duplicate data reporting and access requirements. To read the full text of the final rule, click here . T...

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law Florida’s nurse practitioners and physician assistants were hopeful the Senate would vote to allow them to have the authority to order the involuntary commitment of a patient for mental-health evaluation under the Baker Act. However, instead on April 15, 2013, the Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee passed the formation of a work group to figure out how to improve the more than 40-year...