AHLA's monthly podcast featuring health lawyer and blogger Norm Tabler's informative and entertaining take on recent health law and other legal developments.
https://vurbl.com/station/18GwprdCnJp/
To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.
AHLA's monthly podcast featuring health lawyer and blogger Norm Tabler's informative and entertaining take on recent health law and other legal developments.
https://vurbl.com/station/18GwprdCnJp/
To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.
Hi, I'm Norm Taber with this month's edition of the Lighter Side of Health Law Baby Seal of the Month. You've heard the phrase, it's like clubbing baby seals. It means taking advantage of a completely helpless victim. Here on the lighter side, we use it to characterize a person we could make fun of, but we don't because it would be too darn easy like clubbing, baby seals. This month's baby seal is nurse Ashley Grahams of Salem Health in Oregon. Ashley had the bright idea of going on TikTok to mock the Covid precautions. Her coworkers take and brag that she does not wear a mask in public. She travels and she lets her kids have play dates as a musical message to coworkers. Concerned with her flouting of Covid precautions. She included a clip of herself lip syncing along with the Grinch in how the Grinch stole Christmas. Her hospital was upset by Ashley's performance, possibly because it has the most employee related Covid cases of any hospital in the state. They fired Ashley anyway. We originally planned to make fun of Ashley, but because it would be too easy, we're declaring her a baby seal. The unmasked crusader. All Ashley did was brag about personally disregarding Covid protective measures. Dr. Steven Latu lip of Dallas, Oregon went much further. He advised his patients not to wear masks, told patients without symptoms that they should not be tested. That masks do not prevent covid transmission and get this, that self-isolation is dangerous because exposure to others provides covid immunity. When a patient questioned his covid advice, Dr. Steve fired him as a patient, not content with advising patients one-on-one, Dr. Steve took to YouTube to warn the world that masks are not only ineffective but downright dangerous, proclaiming that they contribute to multiple serious health conditions. Maybe I should call him Mr. Steve instead of Dr. Steve because the Oregon Medical Board has suspended his medical license because of his role as the unmasked crusader. Well, now I've heard it all. You'd better sit down for this because it will knock your socks off. According to an OIG special fraud alert issued last month, some drug and medical device companies have been using speaker programs to reward doctors for helping to boost their sales. Believe it or not, when they pay a speaker a big fee, the speaker often turns out to be a big promoter of their products and often the same doctor gives the same presentation over and over, getting paid over and over, and although you don't think of doctors as slow learners, often the same doctors go to the same presentation over and over, and the program seem to be held at resorts, golf clubs, or high-end restaurants, or maybe in the city hosting the Super Bowl that weekend with the doctors bringing their spouses and guests. The IG says this is beginning to look a little suspicious, and if you're one of these speakers or attendees, you probably ought to read up on the anti-kickback statute and the fraud and abuse rules. The IG says she chose now to issue the alert because the pandemic has curtailed so many in-person activities, so it's a good time for everyone to sit back and rethink the whole subject. One more victim of the pandemic. The Coronavirus Pandemic has claimed another victim. The scented candle industry since loss of the sense of smell is one of the symptoms of the virus. We might have anticipated the problem, but we didn't. In fact, the Senate candle industry as well as research by the Harvard Study of Adult Development confirmed that since the onset of the pandemic, complaints about scented candles have shot up and customer satisfaction with them has gone down. The complaints are all the same, that the Senate candles have too little scent or not at all. The average consumer rating of Senate candles has dropped a full star. Meanwhile, complaints and consumer ratings for unseeded candles remain unchanged. You heard it here first, paging Dr. Fauci. There's a simple way to beat the Coronavirus pandemic and it's right before our eyes. It came to me when I read a New York Times article about the so-called Swiss cheese defense. If you've ever been involved in risk management, you already know this model. It likens each protective measure like mask, wearing hand washing and social distancing to one slice and a block of Swiss cheese. The notion is that even if the threat gets through one hole in one slice, another slice will stop it because the holes are not aligned. Makes sense? But then it occurred to me, why you Swiss cheese? Why not cheddar? With cheddar there are no holes, so you'd only need one slice. Plus it's made in America the Platy Puss Award for my money. The Platy puss is the world's strangest animal. The furry mammal is built like a beaver, but it has a bill like a duck, and it reproduces by laying eggs. That's why the award for the person in healthcare who says or does the strangest thing is called the Platypus Award. This month's platypus goes to Sanford Health, c e o, Kelby Krabbenhoft. I'll call him Krabby for short, for taking the public position that he won't wear a face mask because doing so would be living a lie. You're asking how could wearing a face mask be living a lie? Well, reasons K crabby. I had covid, but I recovered, so I'm now immune by wearing a mask. I would be deceiving people by indicating I'm not immune. Q e d, what does the hospital system think of Kreb's position? You decide? A few days later, Kreb's board summoned him in for a heart to heart, after which he announced quote, we decided that today was a good time to retire. You can't make this stuff up. Cruel Deville Award. This month's cruel Deville Award named for the Villainist in 101 Dalmatians goes to Paul Elmer, former c e o of Pharmacon Pharmaceutical. Remarkably, what Paul did was actually worse than kidnapping puppies for their firm. How can that be? You're asking. Here's how Pharmacon mixed and distributed compound drugs to hospitals across the country, including opioids like morphine and fentanyl on at least 134 occasions. Test results told them that the dosages were mislabeled because the strength was much higher or lower than the label indicated. How much? One test showed morphine at 25 times stronger than labeled. What did Paul do in those cases? He sent the mislabeled drugs anyway, and the drugs got administered to patients, including infants. In the neonatal unit. One baby went into respiratory arrest. When the hospital notified the fda, the agency sent inspectors to Pharmacon lab sites. What did Paul do? He told his pharmacist to lie and say they never received the test results. Fearing that one pharmacist would tell the truth. Paul sent another pharmacist one he was in a romantic relationship with to pretend she was the pharmacist at that site. When Paul appealed his 33 month sentence As too harsh, the Seventh Circuit upheld it and said, it probably should have been longer. The case is US versus Elmer Seventh Circuit. Well, that's it for this month's edition of the Lighter Site of Health Law. I hope you enjoyed it. Check your A H L A Weekly and Connections Magazine for the next edition.