L.A. Man Charged with 5 Felony Counts of Practicing Medicine Without a License

 

A California man was charged last month with five felony counts, including falsely claiming to be a licensed doctor and practicing medicine on thousands of individuals, offering treatment for serious medical conditions, including cancer.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney announced that 44 year old Stephan Gevorkian, who lives in Studio City, faces five felony counts of practicing medicine without a certification in case BA514156.

“Practicing medicine without a license is not only a criminal activity in California, it can cause irreparable harm to the health of unsuspecting people, some with serious illnesses, who believe they are under the care of a licensed physician,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement about the case.

According to the DA’s office, an undercover investigator went to Pathways Medical and posed as a patient, sitting down with Gevorkian--owner and operator of the...

Continue Reading...

PHE Ending - Details Available on New DEA Prescribing Rules Post-Covid-19 PHE

In order to avoid lapses in care for patients, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced an extension of the temporary Covid-era exceptions to the Ryan Haight Act requirements for prescribing controlled substances. 

 

In the text of the new rule published May 10, 2023, which you can read in full here, DEA puts forth the details of the new, temporary rule that extends prescribing flexibilities. 

 

Background:

 

Under the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 (the Ryan Haight Act), in-person evaluation, conducted by the prescriber, is required before any controlled substances may be prescribed, with very limited exceptions. 

 

One of those exceptions under the Ryan Haight Act includes public health emergencies declared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). With the federal Covid-19 public health emergency (PHE) set to expire May 11, 2023, the DEA needed to address the real-world implications of ending an...

Continue Reading...

DEA Extending Telemedicine Flexibilities Beyond the End of the PHE

 

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is temporarily extending current COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) flexibilities for prescribing controlled substances via telemedicine. 

As we covered in detail on this blog (PHE Ending: What You Need to Know), the federal PHE ends on May 11, 2023. At that point, absent action by the DEA or Congress, the end of the PHE would mean a return to in-person visits before providers could prescribe controlled substances.

Back in February, the DEA issued proposed rules that were intended to avoid a "prescribing cliff" where patients seen during the pandemic could no longer be seen under the permanent rules dating back to 2009. The medical community was not happy with the solution many saw as more restrictive than necessary and imposing barriers to care for many patients. 

In a statement, the DEA acknowledged that it received a record number of comments from industry stakeholders and policymakers during the public comment period...

Continue Reading...

PHE Ending: What You Need to Know

 

Introduction

I'm Scott Rattigan, founder of Functional Lawyer. Way back in March of 2020, there was a lot of excitement because the federal government, the administration, at that time, put into place a lot of waivers for the pandemic, declaring a Public Health Emergency (PHE). Since the PHE is ending on May 11, 2023, there is much you need to know so that you're in compliance with all the laws going forward after that date. Basically, things will go back to the permanent rules. If you've been relying on these waivers or temporary rules for the past three years, this video is for you because you don't want to get into trouble by not knowing the rules. While there are dozens of rules that are going back into place May 11, or shortly thereafter, I want to focus on the two that have the most impact for our community here in functional medicine. First is cross state/interstate practice of telemedicine, and second is prescribing controlled substances via telemedicine

Cross...

Continue Reading...

HIPAA Minimum Requirements

 

Blog Overview

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) can be complicated.  What are you doing for HIPAA? How confident are you in your HIPAA plans?  More is needed than just a Notice of Privacy Practices and some HIPAA compliant software.  This is not an overwhelming task, but it does require you to follow a checklist and to be conscientious in complying with the HIPAA regulations.  By appointing a privacy and security officer, one person can oversee the HIPAA minimum requirements: create a HIPAA Policies & Procedures Manual, document HIPAA compliance, train employees to enforce HIPAA regulations & maintain a culture of privacy, and conduct an annual Security Risk Assessment. All of these will take some time to put in place, but once they are in place, they are easily enforced, and compliance is minimal. 

Introduction

You're probably not doing enough for HIPAA right now at this moment in time. Several times a week, I have...

Continue Reading...

NP Scope in CA for 2023

 

Introduction

As most nurse practitioners know, there is a bill called Assembly Bill 890 that Governor Newsom signed into law in September of 2020. In it, he and the legislature have tasked the Board of Registered Nursing to come up with two new categories of nurse practitioners: 103 NP & 104 NP.  While exciting for nurse practitioners in California, it’s important to understand what can be done today and what needs to wait for a few more years.

Assembly Bill 890 103 NP & 104 NP

The two categories in Assembly Bill 890 are categorized by the code section that have been created under the Business and Professions Code of California. They're commonly referred to as a 103 NPs and 104 NPs and that goes together with Business and Professions Code section 2837.103 and 2837.104 respectively. On January 1, 2023, what is now in effect is that 103 NPs can work in a group setting with at least one physician and surgeon within the practice, but there are some relaxations on the...

Continue Reading...

Stark Law: What You Need to Know

 

The Stark Law, commonly known as the Physician Self-Referral Law, is a federal law that prohibits physicians from referring patients to any entity where they have a vested financial interest for “designated health services” that will be paid by Medicare or Medicaid. Physicians need to be careful to not violate this law by being aware of the ins and outs of it.  This is a distinct law not to be confused with the Anti-Kickback Statute, another federal law, which I will address in a later video and blog. Navigating through the Stark Law can be confusing, so I’m here to help you with the details. 

Introduction

I want to give you a quick overview so that you know how to handle and more importantly, avoid any complications from violating the Stark Law on the federal level, which will have lots of applications for state law as well. I get questions every day from providers out there that are going out on their own, starting up their own practice, and just want...

Continue Reading...

HIPAA Disclosure Accounting

 

Disclosure Accounting Basics

In HIPAA, we have something called disclosure accounting, and most people are not familiar with this. If you are brand new to having your own practice or brand new to not having a whole HIPAA department available to you, know that HIPAA disclosure accounting is not financial. It is accounting the action of process of keeping records of particular disclosures. These are sometimes referred to as Accounting of Disclosures or AOD, and most entities will keep them in a log, either on a spreadsheet or a written log in a WORD processor format.

So, what’s included in this log? Every disclosure that’s made for purposes other than Treatment, Payment, or Healthcare Operations (TPO). Within the context of disclosure accounting, there are mostly those where the patients have asked for it themselves with a few exceptions to this. So, we will go into the exceptions as well. But disclosure is defined as access to delivery of or transmission to parties that...

Continue Reading...

DNP in California: A Lesson in Transparency

 

Introduction

Not playing by the rules can have serious consequences. At the end of 2022 in San Luis Obispo, California, a nurse practitioner, Sarah Erny, signed a settlement to pay almost $20,000 and was ordered to remove most mentions of herself on the Internet and remove her own website because she did not play by the rules. As I tell my son's baseball team or any of the coaching teams that I'm a part of, you must figure out how to play by the rules and then still win the game. Rules exist, and if we break those rules, even when what we do seems harmless or is not deliberately intended to harm anyone, we must be ready to pay the price. 

Two Little Letters

It all started when Sarah Erny, a nurse practitioner, became the subject of a civil complaint from the District Attorney's office in San Luis Obispo, California. Ultimately, the complaint was about referring to herself as “Doctor” (Dr.) Most cases like this are complicated, filled with laws and opinions, and this...

Continue Reading...

PHE Ending...What does this mean??

 

The Federal Public Health Emergency will end soon, and many states have already set their termination dates for State Public Health Emergencies. Prescribing controlled substances via telemedicine is allowed now during the Public Health Emergency. But what will happen once the Public Health Emergency ends in 2023? This issue spurred the American Hospital Association to write a letter to the DEA on behalf of its more than 5,000 member hospitals and health systems. They asked the DEA to act and implement a rule that was supposed to have been put into place almost fourteen years ago. So, some discussion about controlled substances and telemedicine is needed, and how this will work at the end of this year, if not sooner.

Special Telemedicine Registration History

To further understand, a little history is in order here. In 2008, the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act sought to prevent the prescription of opioids over the internet via online questionnaire. Now they did...

Continue Reading...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Close

50% Complete

Download your FREE guide 

Enter your information below to receive your guide. It will be delivered to your inbox shortly.