May, 2012

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Professor Appeals DEA's Medical Marijuana Research Ban

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. A professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst is appealing a final order issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that prohibits him from growing marijuana for medical research purposes. Appeals Court Hears Oral Arguments in Medical Marijuana Research Case.

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Florida Cardiologist Issued Emergency Suspension Order for Performing Stem Cell Treatments

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. A Florida cardiologist recently had his medical license emergently suspended by the Florida Department of Health (DOH) for performing stem cell treatments. According to the emergency suspension order (ESO), the DOH had previously warned the doctor to stop performing these treatments in 2011.

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Florida HB 0653 Signed Into Law; Effective 7/1/2012

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law The Florida Legislature unanimously passed HB 653 which relaxes some of the draconian exclusions enacted under SB 1986, which went into effect on July 1, 2009. SB 1986, which added provisions to Chapter 456, Florida Statutes, among others, prevented numerous healthcare providers from obtaining or renewing licenses based on prior criminal convictions, which could have occurred decades earlier.

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Cardinal Health Reaches Settlement with DEA; Suspends Shipments From Florida Facility for Two Years

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. Cardinal Health has reached a settlement with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The settlement suspends Cardinal Health's ability to ship controlled substances from its Florida distribution facility for two years. The company will now supply controlled substances from its distribution center in Jackson, Mississippi.

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Optimizing Medical Waste Management: A Guide to Best Practices

Feeling overwhelmed by medical waste regulations? This comprehensive guide unravels the complexities of medical waste disposal, ensuring you stay compliant and prioritize safety. Inside you'll find: Clear categorization: Learn to precisely classify medical waste for proper handling and disposal. Labeling & Storage: Discover best practices for clear labeling and secure storage of medical waste.

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Registered Nurses in Florida Finalize Union Agreement with HCA

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law Registered nurses at ten HCA hospitals in Florida have reached a collective bargaining agreement with the hospital chain. After negotiating for over a year, National Nurses United--a union for registered nurses--announced that it finalized the agreement with HCA on May 7, 2012.

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DEA Forgets College Student in Cell for Days Without Food, Water: Drinks Urine to Survive

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. A California college student was left in a small holding cell by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for five days without food, water, or a toilet. He believes that the DEA forgot about him. He was taken by agents during a late April 2012 drug raid on his friend's house in which nine people were arrested.

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Did You Know You Have Fifth Amendment Rights in a Florida Department of Health Investigation Involving Your License?

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. If you are contacted by a Florida Department of Health investigator, did you know that you cannot be required to make a statement or give information that can be used against you? If you are being investigated you have a right to refuse to speak with an investigator pursuant to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution and the equivalent rights given by the Florida Constitution, Article 1, Section 9.

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Doctor or Nurse: Please, Please, Please Talk to an Attorney Before You Talk to an Investigator

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. In Florida, You DO NOT Have to Speak to an Investigator! Despite mailing out hundreds of thousands of postcards and letters to physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and psychologists throughout Florida, we continue to receive calls from new clients and from potential clients, after they have already spoken to and made critical harmful admissions against their own interests to investigators.

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Have You Updated All of Your Addresses with Medicare? The Consequences of Not Doing So Are Severe!

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. When Was the Last Time You Checked Your Addresses on File with CMS/Medicare? When was the last time you checked all four of the addresses you should have on file for any individual or any group/company Medicare number you may have? The consequences of not doing so can be severe.

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How to Prepare for an Informal Hearing Before the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy & Mental Health Counseling

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M. Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. If you are scheduled to appear for an informal hearing before the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy & Mental Health Counseling, there are a number of facts that you will want to know in order to be properly prepared. This article will cover many of them.

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HIPAA Compliance: Can Your Organization Avoid Costly Government Penalties and Fines?

Colington Consulting was established in 2013 and helps organizations achieve HIPAA compliance and ensures clients stay current with the latest enforcement trends. We provide a full range of HIPAA compliance services and consulting. What separates us from our competitors is our knowledge of HIPAA compliance regulations and their application to each of our client’s particular scenarios and requirements.

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IRS Will Begin Issuing Medical Resident FICA Refunds

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is now alerting hospitals that it has completed the review of their medical resident Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) refund claims. The first hospitals to be notified may receive their FICA refund checks as early as May 2012.

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How to Prepare for an Informal Hearing Before the Florida Board of Pharmacy

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M. Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. If you are scheduled to appear for an informal hearing before the Florida Board of Pharmacy, there are a number of facts that you will want to know in order to be properly prepared. This article will cover many of them. Limited Circumstances for Informal Administrative Hearing.

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Physician Group Reaches Settlement with HHS Over Alleged HIPAA Privacy Violations

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has reached a settlement with Phoenix Cardiac Surgery (PCS) over alleged Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ( HIPAA ) violations. The settlement was reached on April 17, 2012 and requires PSC to pay OCR $100,000 and enter into a one-year corrective action plan (CAP).

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U.S. Senators Seek Investigation of State Medical Boards

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. Three US Senators have teamed up to request an evaluation of state medical boards. This bipartisan effort was initiated at the end of February 2012 when Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) sent a letter to the director of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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How to Prepare for an Informal Hearing Before the Florida Board of Dentistry

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M. Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law If you are scheduled to appear for an informal hearing before the Florida Board of Dentistry, there are a number of facts that you will want to know in order to be properly prepared. This article will cover many of them. Limited Circumstances for Informal Administrative Hearing First, you should understand that you will only be at an informal hearing in which you appear before the Board of Denstistry it

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Central Florida Pharmacy Accused of Causing Eye Infection Outbreak

The Health Law Firm

According to media reports, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has traced a rare fungal infection to a Central Florida pharmacy. As reported, Franck's Compounding Lab, located in Ocala, Florida, is believed to be at least partially responsible for spreading a rare fungal eye infection to over 30 patients across the US. The CDC reports that eye drops and injections traced back to the lab caused the infections.

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Medicare Fraud Busts Result in Over 100 Arrests

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. Over 100 doctors, nurses and other health professionals were arrested on charges relating to Medicare fraud by federal agents on May 2, 2012. The arrests were made in seven cities nationwide, but more than half took place in South Florida. This was a multi-agency attack on health providers involving law enforcement agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Health and Human S

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How to Prepare for an Informal Hearing Before the Florida Board of Nursing

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M. Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law If you are scheduled to appear for an informal hearing before the Florida Board of Nursing, there are a number of facts that you will want to know in order to be properly prepared. This article will cover many of them. Limited Circumstances for Informal Administrative Hearing First, you should understand that you will only be at an informal hearing in which you appear before the Board of Nursing itself

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Everything You Wanted to Know About FACIS, but Didn’t Know to Ask

Speaker: Amy Anderson

FACIS® helps organizations mitigate patient and organizational risk. Maintaining compliance and safeguarding against fraud and abuse in today’s changing healthcare landscape can be challenging. Most healthcare organizations screen and monitor providers against the OIG but that’s only ONE of FACIS®’ primary sources. FACIS® pulls data for every taxonomy from the lowest level employee to the highest level licensed professional.

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The Greatest Health Advances that Changed our Lives in the Past Century: Part 4

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. In the last century, major changes in health care and technology, as well as simple progress in such innocuous conveniences such as public water fountains, have dramatically improved the quality of life. These have increased the average life expectancy in the United States from 47 years in 1900 to 78 years in 2011 almost doubling life expectancies.

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The Greatest Health Advances that Changed our Lives in the Past Century: Part 3

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law In the last century, major changes in health care and technology, as well as simple progress in such innocuous conveniences such as public water fountains, have dramatically improved the quality of life. These have increased the average life expectancy in the United States from 47 years in 1900 to 78 years in 2011 almost doubling life expectancies.

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How to Prepare for an Informal Hearing Before the Florida Board of Medicine

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M. Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law If you are scheduled to appear for an informal hearing before the Florida Board of Medicine, there are a number of facts that you will want to know in order to be properly prepared. This article will cover many of them. Limited Circumstances for Informal Administrative Hearing.

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Florida Pharmacies Receive Fake Department of Health Letters

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. We have recently received notice from the Florida Department of Health (DOH) that Florida pharmacies have been receiving fraudulent letters from someone claiming to be from "DOH Investigative Services.". These fake letters contain numerous errors including poor grammar, incorrect letterhead and an incorrect phone number.

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Ensure Continuous Patient Care: How to Avoid Disruptions Due to Ransomware

The industry has seen an increasing pace of ransomware, zero-day, and remote-code execution attacks. Learn how to defend against these against these attacks in this eBook.

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How to Prepare for an Informal Hearing Before the Florida Board of Psychology

The Health Law Firm

By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M. Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law If you are scheduled to appear for an informal hearing before the Florida Board of Psychology, there are a number of facts that you will want to know in order to be properly prepared. This article will cover many of them. Limited Circumstances for Informal Administrative Hearing.

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