A successful trial attorney, Cullen McKinney serves Tanoury, Nauts, McKinney and Garbarino, PLLC, as a founding partner. At the Michigan-based law firm TNMG, Cullen McKinney deals with multiple issues of civil defense litigation, and is particularly experienced in various aspects of health law, including medical malpractice.
Health care faces its fair share of legal issues. Dealing with patient information and issues of security, as well as life-or-death decisions is never an easy task. Here are three of the top legal issues in the health care sector today.
1. Informed consent is always a legal issue hospitals and providers need to pay attention to with their patients. This is the right of the patient to understand their medical conditions to the best of their ability, and to be involved in their own care decisions. It is the provider’s responsibility to provide information that is accurate and complete enough for the patient to make those choices that are in their best interest.
2. Data privacy issues continue to be an issue in health care. The more digital records become mainstream, the more vulnerable patient records and information becomes. Medical devices that use Internet connections are now exposed to risk from hackers, so data security is more important than ever.
3. Compliance issues are important to address. Health care transactions now have to comply with more federal statutes than ever, including the Stark Law, the False Claims Act, and the Anti-Kickback Statute. Health care organizations need to pay increasingly more attention to issues of compliance.
