Informed Refusal: What to do when patients cancel recommended treatments or procedures due to COVID-19 related concerns.
Physicians are often faced with situations where they believe a specific medical treatment or procedure is necessary or even lifesaving and yet the patient declines the service due to concerns of being exposed to COVID-19. Taking extra time to have a clear and candid conversation with the patient can make a significant difference. First, consider whether the patient was given adequate information and encouraged to ask questions about the treatment options. Assuring the patient is fully informed allows the patient to make the best decisions for their healthcare. Second, take efforts to explain what additional measures you have adapted to...
Test Result Management Key to Accurate and Timely Diagnosis
The failure to follow up on imaging, test and lab results is a widespread issue that continues to pose challenges to patient safety. As in years past, ECRI Institute named Missed and Delayed Diagnosis as one of its Top 10 Patient Concerns for 2020 and noted that mismanagement of test result have long been a primary contributing factor to errors in diagnosis. Although the complexity of the diagnostic process means that many factors contribute to missed and delayed diagnoses, system factors such as test result management play a significant role. A 10-year analysis of 124,000 medical professional liability cases revealed...
While coronavirus dominated much of the California legislative landscape in 2020, a number of bills on a variety of subjects impacting health care providers were signed into law by Governor Newsom. Following are a few new laws you should be aware of; all are effective January 1, 2021 unless otherwise noted. Employee Notification of COVID-19 Exposure: AB 685 (Reyes) requires employers to provide written notification within 24 hours to their employees if they are potentially exposed, at the workplace, to a person who was infectious with COVID-19 or who was subject to a COVID-19 related quarantine order. The law...
As the use of telehealth has continued to explode in the U.S., physicians are increasingly learning how to navigate a new way of interacting with patients and delivering medical care using real-time videoconferencing. With experience comes an appreciation of the benefits, and the problems, associated with practicing medicine through a remote connection. Distractions are a major problem during telemedicine visits, both for patients and physicians. A recent study of over 1,000 individuals revealed that 73% of men and 39% of women report multitasking during telehealth visits. Some of the distractions included: Surfing online/emailing/texting (24.5%) Watching TV (24%) Eating (21%) Playing a video game (19%) Smoking (11%) Driving (10%) Drinking alcohol (9.4%) While...
Much of the discussion around patient privacy and confidentiality centers around appropriately restricting and securing access to protected health information, and this is for good reason- threats such as data breaches and cyber attacks often dominate the news, and medical practices are understandably concerned about the risks of litigation and bad publicity associated with privacy violations. It is important, however, to remember that patients have the right to access, and in some cases to direct others to access, their medical information in a timely fashion and at a reasonable cost. Providers own their physical records, but patients increasingly expect to have the ability to exercise their legal rights to the information contained in those records. Laws pertaining to medical...