Drugmaker paid doctors with problem records to promote its pill (CNN)One physician had his prescription pad taken away after he repeatedly failed tests assessing his competency. Another was banned from treating mentally ill inmates and accused of endangering nursing home patients by prescribing excessive dosages of medications. At least three others had criminal convictions for illegal prescribing. Read More... December 5, 2017 Public Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
84-year-old doctor who refuses to use computer loses medical license Aside from a fax machine and landline telephone, there isn’t much technology in the office of physician Anna Konopka, 84... Konopka said she felt forced to surrender her medical license in September after New Hampshire Board of Medicine officials challenged her record-keeping, prescribing practices and medical decision-making, according to court documents. She is specifically accused of leaving the dosage levels of a medication up to a young girl’s parent and failing to treat the girl with daily inhaled steroids. Read More... December 4, 2017 EHR, General, Public Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
Is There A Way To Keep Using Opioid Painkillers And Reduce Risk? In response to the epidemic of opioid addiction and deaths, in 2016 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines urging physicians to try non-opioid methods first for chronic pain. In a viewpoint published last month in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association, CDC officials wrote that while illicit opioids such as fentanyl seem to be driving the recent increase in opioid-related overdose deaths, "unnecessary exposure to prescription opioids must be reduced to prevent development of opioid use disorder in the first place." Read More... November 14, 2017 General, Public Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
AARP Foundation Sues Nursing Home To Stop Illegal Evictions A California judge could decide Tuesday if Gloria Single will be reunited with her husband, Bill. She's 83 years old. He's 93. The two have been married for 30 years. They lived in the same nursing home until last March, when Gloria Single was evicted without warning. Read More... November 14, 2017 General, Public Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
Physician-Assisted Suicide Has Been Legal in California for a Year. How’s it Going? California’s End of Life Option Act went into effect on June 9, 2016. The law created a process for dying patients to ask their doctors for a lethal prescription that the patients can then ingest privately, at home. Since then, at least 500 Californians have received life-ending prescriptions, according to newly released data collected by Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group that promotes aid-in-dying laws nationwide. Read More... June 8, 2017 General, Public Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
