PRMS Blog

Training psychiatry residents to realize the best possible outcomes with patients means giving them the expertise to be the best that they can be with training programs that put them on a learning continuum and further their professional growth. That’s one reason why PRMS matched travel awards for outstanding residents with an interest in psychiatric education to take part in t ...

May 5 marks national Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day. PRMS applauds mental health groups and communities around the country as they work to raise awareness about the mental health needs of America’s youngest citizens. In an effort to draw people together to advocate for a full array of effective services, we wanted to provide information about how you can get involved. ...

A growing cadre of senior psychiatrists with a wealth of knowledge about their profession has ambitious plans to keep on giving by sharing their decades of experience with younger colleagues and by helping other senior psychiatrists navigate unique challenges as they and their practices age. PRMS recently pledged its support for Senior Psychiatrists, Inc. headed by President Na ...

  Starting or joining a private practice is an exciting time, but it can also be risky.  An essential way to protect your professional reputation and reduce risk is to obtain comprehensive medical professional liability insurance.  In a previous blog I discussed what areas to avoid when purchasing an insurance policy.  In this post I will address some important steps you can t ...

In January, I posted about the “Top Three HIPAA Lessons Learned in 2015”, citing the need to encrypt portable devices containing PHI as the number one lesson learned.  In March, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced two new resolution agreements – both stemming from the loss of unencrypted laptops.  It appears that OCR is beginning to lose patience with covered entities wh ...

For the third time in as many weeks, today I received a phone call from a family member of one of our insureds calling to let us know that the doctor had passed away.  As always, I was saddened to learn of the passing of one of our clients but my heart really went out to the family member – in this case the doctor’s wife – who was frantically trying to provide for the doctor’s ...

As an accomplished psychiatrist and educator, Deborah J. Hales, MD has long had her finger on the pulse of issues facing psychiatrists, residents and medical students considering entering the field. In medical school, Hales wanted to become a psychiatrist but a mentor steered her towards pediatrics, so she could be “a real doctor.”  Dr. Hales eventually fought back the stigma a ...

Earlier this month I commented on a Los Angeles hospital’s computer system that was taken over by hackers, and the criminals demanded a ransom payment in bitcoin to release the electronic medical records.   The hospital ended up paying the ransom in 40 bitcoins (approximately $17,000), as demanded by the criminals. In that post I shared some technical advice from the Office of ...

Medscape recently published the results of its annual physician lifestyle report, consisting of responses from more than 15,800 physicians in 25 specialties. According to the respondents, psychiatrists are not reporting burnout, but are reporting biases. Here are some of the interesting results: *The most burned out specialty was critical care (55%), and the least burned out sp ...

As I’m polishing my talk for the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry’s Annual Meeting in New York later this week, I thought I’d share some thoughts on liability risk related to treating children and adolescents. Greatest Professional Liability Exposure In terms of frequency, your greatest exposure areas treating children and adolescents are the same as for treating adul ...