March 2016

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 ...

Last month a Los Angeles hospital’s computer system was taken over by hackers and the criminals demanded a ransom payment in Bitcoin to release the electronic medical records. From the hospital’s press release: “On the evening of February 5th, our staff noticed issues accessing the hospital’s computer network. Our IT department began an immediate investigation and determined we ...