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DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

For nursing homes, a quarter lack PPE, half have infected staff, study finds

October 23, 2020

For residents of nursing homes and their loved ones, new and disturbing information has come out on long-term care facilities’ persistent failure to safeguard the vulnerable from the coronavirus that has killed tens of thousands of the institutionalized and infected hundreds of thousands of them and their caregivers. Six months after the pandemic exploded across the country, more than a quarter of nursing homes nationwide are “reporting shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and staff,…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

It was avoidable. Its harms can be lessened. Fall’s Covid surge is under way.

By Patrick A. Malone

October 21, 2020

As the weather has turned crisper, and autumn leaves have begun to fall, in sadly predictable fashion, coronavirus cases are rising once again coast-to-coast. More than 8 million Americans have been infected — roughly equivalent to the population of New York and far exceeding the number of people who live in metropolitan Washington, D.C. The nation is racing toward 220,00 Covid-19 deaths, with that number rising inexorably and likely an understatement of the…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Centuries of restraint fall: Top journals assail Trump’s science denialism

By Patrick A. Malone

October 18, 2020

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They are a unique combination — august publications in science and medicine that harken back for centuries yet now inform 21st century practitioners about the latest advances in their fields. And now these leading scientific journals say the present moment forces them to abandon their prized political neutrality to oppose the science denialism of the incumbent leader of the free world. This is an unprecedented and uncomfortable development for the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature,…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

The health insurance mess: Worker costs jump anew, as kids’ coverage falls

By Patrick A. Malone

October 16, 2020

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The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many Americans to reconsider their transportation options, what with fears of infection and the slashing of public transit systems’ routes and schedules. That has made used cars, motorcycles, and bicycles hot commodities. Those who are working and considering how their finances might stretch may take little comfort in another reality of the U.S. health care system — the relentlessly increasing cost of employer-provided coverage. Who can afford a second car…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Will plutocrats pay $3 billion to keep $13 billion and elude opioid charges?

By Patrick A. Malone

October 14, 2020

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So, who doesn’t daydream a little about money? Maybe even big money. Just imagine a scenario where, if you could put up $3,000, you could keep $13,000, or if you forked over $30,000, and walked away with $130,000? So how great would it be if you paid $3 billion but could stuff $13 billion into your pockets? What a deal! Of course, it depends on whose perspective you look at it from. Federal prosecutors and…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Nevada offers key lessons in challenge to U.S. virus tests for nursing homes

By Patrick A. Malone

October 13, 2020

The federal agency that regulates nursing homes and other long-term care facilities not only has cracked down on them with tough new requirements for coronavirus testing of their staff. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services also has flogged its plan to provide facilities with testing equipment and sample tests. While owners and operators have grumbled about the whole process, the state of Nevada has gone a step further: Enough, its health officials have decided.…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Infection doesn’t deter President from tub-thumping for yet another unproven drug

By Patrick A. Malone

October 11, 2020

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Well, there he goes again (as President Reagan used to say): President Trump, whose White House has become a coronavirus hot spot and who has clearly played a role in a super spreader event, is hyping yet another medical treatment for Covid-19. He has referred to his own viral infection as “a blessing from God,” used the C word (as in “cure”) and has called an incipient therapy used on him as a “miracle.”…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Prosecutors, pandemic or no, crack down on billions in health care frauds

By Patrick A. Malone

October 9, 2020

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With the Covid-19 pandemic ensuring that even more dollars are flooding into health care than ever, nefarious parties — including doctors, nurses, and other licensed professionals — have targeted ordinary Americans and the federal government in big-time scams. U.S. prosecutors have punched back with a nationwide fraud crackdown. They announced that they have charged 345 individuals for “submitting more than $6 billion in false and fraudulent claims to federal health care programs and private…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

Maryland adds testing and leads area in allowing nursing homes to re-open

By Patrick A. Malone

October 6, 2020

Maryland will take the lead among states in the area in re-opening nursing homes and other long-term care facilities from months of coronavirus-related closures to family members, guests, and other visitors. Gov. Larry Hogan (shown, right) acted as the state, for the first time in months, reported that October started with zero Covid-19 fatalities and 76 of Maryland’s 227 nursing homes had active coronavirus cases — down from 130 on Aug. 5, the Washington Post…

DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog

McConnell push for immunity from lawsuits would protect big insurers, not small businesses

By Patrick A. Malone

October 5, 2020

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Taxpayers have put billions of dollars into long-term care rescue. Congress and the White House have deadlocked over further assistance, with a key stumbling block — as expressed by the foot-dragging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — focused on demands for greater protections for health care workers and enterprises, as well as business in general, from legal accountability for their work during the pandemic. This is sham reasoning to stall desperately needed aid, for example,…