For The Defense, July 2010 - DRI Today

“Change” was the rallying cry heard during the lastnationwide election. This call for change resulted inthe recently enacted federal health care reform legislationthat reshapes the way the United States paysfor and delivers health care services.Certainly one of the challenges for thealmost 1,400 members of DRI’s MedicalLiability and Health Care LawCommittee is to understand and respondto the changes this legislationbrings to our health care system. Butother challenges continue for committeemembers. The landscape of tort reformcontinues to cause shifts in theway practitioners defend health careproviders. And the greatest recessionsince the Great Depression has addedcost burdens to the abilities of membersto help clients in the health caresystem. The goal of the Medical Liabilityand Health Care Law Committeeis to provide its members with thetools to meet the challenge of change inhealth care. The committee has committeditself to help through education,professionalism and practice growth.The educational efforts of the committeecontinue to be its strength. TheMedical Liability and Health CareLaw Seminar, held February 10–11,2010, in Phoenix, was a remarkablesuccess. Program Chair Betty Cornacchioand Program Vice Chair Jim Cravendid an outstanding job of puttingtogether a top-notch program, with aheavy emphasis on birth trauma, aswell as on contemporary topics suchas new developments in Medicare andMedicaid recovery and set-off.Committee members who defendlong-term care claims should registernow for the Nursing Home/ALF LitigationSeminar scheduled for September23–24 in Chicago. ProgramChair Anthony J. Fernandez and ProgramVice Chair Jacquelyn J. Corehave assembled a program that hasbecome the standard of care for thosedefending long-term care providers.Planning is already underway forthe 2011 Medical Liability and HealthCare Law Seminar, scheduled forMarch 10–11, 2011, in San Francisco.Please feel free to contact Jim Craven,who will chair next year’s program, orhis vice chair, Alex Hagan, if you wantto be involved in planning, organizingor promoting this seminar.The committee’s education effortsalso continue through its publications.In this issue of For The Defense,committee members have writtenarticles on nine medical and legal topics.Members representing health careproviders will surely want to read andreview them to improve the servicethey provide to clients. PublicationsVice Chair Tracy Zuckett did an outstandingjob compiling and editingthese articles. Tracy and PublicationsChair Mary Wydysh continue to prepareand edit The MedLaw Update,the committee’s quarterly electronicnewsletter. Please contact either ofthem if you are interested in publishingan article about a case you havejust won, or a medical liability topicof interest to you.The committee is undertaking severalnew initiatives to extend its educationalreach. Rob Smith has agreedto shepherd an effort to put together acompendium of the medical liabilitystatutes of every state. The goal is to createone simple, easy reference, availableto committee members on line at theDRI website, as well as available to insuranceindustry professionals and riskmanagers. In addition, Jackie Trimm isspearheading an update of the HIPAAcompendium that the committee previouslyassembled. Please feel free tocontact either one of them if you areinterested in helping in their efforts.To assist members with practicegrowth, the committee is using DRI’snew Industry Partnership Initiativewith the goal of establishing relationshipswith organizations and institutionsoutside of DRI. The committeehas appointed Suzanne Bachovin tobe its liaison with the American Societyof Health Risk Managers. And,Al D’Aquino has agreed to be thecommittee’s liaison with Health Systems.The hope is that we can increaseopportunities for committee membersto learn from and participate withother health care related institutionsthrough seminar programming, webcasts and joint meetings.The committee continues to seestrong participation in the DRI AnnualMeeting. At the meeting in Chicagolast fall, more than 45 membersattended the business meeting. Therethey heard Jackie Trimm give a precisepresentation on how Medicare reportingrequirements are applicableto health care providers. This year, atthe Annual Meeting in San Diego, October20–24, the committee will onceagain gather to plan our business for2011 and listen to a presentation fromScott Salter on the interplay betweenHIPAA requirements and ex parte contactswith treating physicians.Finally, opportunities for the committeemembers to connect with eachother abound. If any committee memberis interested in participating in anyof the projects above, it is easy to do so.Simply go to the DRI website, click onthe Medical Liability and Health CareLaw Committee page, and all the contactinformation needed is right there.Also, committee members can workwith each other through the MedicalLiability list serve. It is very easy for aDRI member to join the list serve. Indoing so, members have a quick andeasy network to find out informationabout expert witnesses, to locate expertsin specialties, to ask for help onlegal issues and even to refer clientsor potential clients to members fromother states in the country.The most important function thecommittee can serve for its membersis to provide the opportunity todevelop relationships and friendshipsthroughout the country. It is throughthe bonds of these relationships thatall of us in the committee will be ableto meet the continuing challenge ofchange in health care.For The Defense n July 2010 n 11