PRMS Blog

A Guest Blog by Donna Vanderpool, MBA, JD, Vice-President of Risk Management It’s the start of a new year, so I just cannot resist offering one resolution to consider for 2012. Here it is: try to document your patients’ treatment records so that someone else can read the record and understand what happened in your treatment and why. The “someone else” could be another clinicia ...

A couple weeks ago, a doctor (gastroenterologist) was killed in a traffic accident on his way to work. When I see a story like this, naturally I feel bad for the doctor, his family, his friends, and his colleagues. But I also think about his patients: they have lost someone important in their lives as well. How will they hear the news? Who will take over their care? What about ...

Happy Holidays from PRMS! On behalf of everyone at PRMS, best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and for a new year full of happiness and good health. In lieu of holiday cards this year, we have made a donation to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). We applaud and support the advocacy and dedication of NAMI to ensure access to help the millions of people affected ...

It seems that for psychiatrists, the last two weeks of December are times of either feast or famine.  Some psychiatrists say it’s very busy in their offices. They attribute this to rising stress and waning sunlight; patients wreaking havoc on the appointment book for travel, shopping, entertaining, and having kids at home; student-patients home from college checking in; last mi ...

A Guest Blog by Donna Vanderpool, MBA, JD, Vice-President of Risk Management When physician acquaintances find out that I make my living assisting physicians in managing their professional liability risk, they always want to know the one thing that they can do to avoid being sued for medical malpractice. There is no panacea, of course; nothing can actually prevent all lawsuits. ...

A nationally syndicated advice column last week dealt with the issue of how to politely but decisively suppress any conversation with a talkative stranger (in a waiting room, or on a plane, etc.). One suggestion: tell the stranger that you sell insurance for a living. Alas, we in the insurance business have heard this before.  Insurance talk is boring and confusing at best, and ...

If you haven’t already taken steps to establishing a presence on the internet, you know colleagues who have. If you have children age 10 and older, they’re on the internet in some fashion, whether you know it or not. So what’s stopping you, as a psychiatrist, from joining the millions of your fellow humans who are maximizing the benefits of the internet? From a risk management ...

Psychiatry is a low-risk specialty, ranking very low in both the frequency and severity of medical malpractice claims. Most physicians feel that talking about settling a claim is taboo, but it is our commitment to be honest with our customers, though it is not our philosophy, we feel it is our obligation to discuss it.  The reality is psychiatrists do get sued, and occasionally ...

A Guest Blog by Rich Stagnato, PRMS Accounts Representative Private practitioners who need to keep track of reimbursement for their services and maintain records can find that keeping track of medical malpractice policies can also be a challenge. Some insurance companies promote claims made policies as the only or preferred option but, in reality, there are other choices availa ...

One of the unfortunate realities of practicing child and adolescent psychiatry is the complex legal overlay that affects the practice. In particular, a C&A psychiatrist must have a good understanding of state law related to consent to treatment and release of patient information. Any C&AP practitioner knows that the children of divorce often become “hostages” to the par ...