The review and analysis of medical records is a very important part of any personal injury or malpractice case. This book provides an introduction to the law and basic principles as they apply to medical records. It provides a comprehensive list of guidelines for obtaining, reviewing, interpreting, and understanding the documents in a typical record. It offers a useful glossary, a selection of relevant websites, a review of state laws that deal with access to medical records, and an extensive list of abbreviations that may be encountered in clinical practice. While the author does not offer specific legal advice, he gives the reader all of the tools needed to research and utilize medical records. Laypersons, attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, nursing professionals, medical practice administrators, risk managers, and law students will find this a very useful reference and guidebook.

Students and professional nurses at any level of clinical practice will find this book to be a vital resource on the basic legal concepts and principles of malpractice, liability, and risk management, and their implications for the profession. The book also provides detailed strategies for dealing with these issues. The content is also highly relevant to practitioners in all other health care and legal disciplines that collaborate in the delivery of health care. Issues discussed include the expanding and evolving roles for professional nurses and the concomitant legal accountability and risk for liability, the increasing incidence of nurses named as defendants in malpractice lawsuits, anticipated changes in our health care delivery system, and breakthroughs in science and technology that will present new legal questions. The book also includes material on other important facets of today's nursing practice, including the growing phenomenon of tele-nursing, the essentials of malpractice insurance, and the legal significance of documentation and patients' medical records. It helps the reader identify the nurse at risk for a malpractice suit and the characteristics of the patient likely to sue. The appendices provide information on state laws concerned with access to medical records, a list of useful websites, a list of state boards of nursing, and a glossary of important terms.

This is the first book to explore this emergent role of the nursing profession. It examines the unique legal, regulatory and professional issues this neoteric mode of nursing practice presents. Telenursing as a subset of telehealth is defined and a review of its history, present status, and future in the U.S. health care system is discussed. Concomitant legal accountability and risk for malpractice liability are examined. Risk management strategies and survival tactics in the event of a lawsuit are presented--particularly the legal significance of, and essential need for, defensive nursing documentation. A brief overview of malpractice law is provided and the essentials of requisite malpractice insurance for the telenurse practitioner are outlined.

The book also addresses a number of other professional, regulatory, and licensure issues, particularly the contentious issue of multistate licensing and the various models to facilitate it that are being offered, and rejected, by nursing organizations and associations. The anticipated changes in our health care delivery system that will be engendered by breakthroughs in science and technology are described. The implications of such changes for patients as consumers of health care are analyzed--particularly the privacy and confidentiality of electronic medical records.

Fraud committed against the elderly has reached epidemic proportions, and the problem will only worsen as a large segment of the American population approaches retirement age. This book explores the disturbing rise in these offenses - crimes aimed at a vulnerable segment of society that is often unable to overcome the consequences - with an eye towards helping seniors protect themselves. This handbook first defines fraud, then discusses why the elderly are targeted, the growing scope of the problem, and why these crimes often go unreported or unsolved. The second section clearly explains 28 of the most common types of fraud - including home improvement scams, health frauds, identity theft and magazine sales - in a manner that allows readers to recognize and avoid the predatory actions of others (whether strangers, friends, or even family members). The third section provides a list of resources and actions to take and for those who believe themselves to be the victim of fraud. The book also contains a list of related acronyms, an index and a bibliography.

Students and professional nurses at any level of clinical practice will find this book to be a vital resource on the basic legal concepts and principles of malpractice, liability, and risk management, and their implications for the profession. The book also provides detailed strategies for dealing with these issues. The content is also highly relevant to practitioners in all other health care and legal disciplines that collaborate in the delivery of health care.

Issues discussed include the expanding and evolving roles for professional nurses and the concomitant legal accountability and risk for liability, the increasing incidence of nurses named as defendants in malpractice lawsuits, anticipated changes in our health care delivery system, and breakthroughs in science and technology that will present new legal questions. The book also includes material on other important facets of today's nursing practice, including the growing phenomenon of tele-nursing, the essentials of malpractice insurance, and the legal significance of documentation and patients' medical records. It helps the reader identify the nurse at risk for a malpractice suit and the characteristics of the patient likely to sue. The appendices provide information on state laws concerned with access to medical records, a list of useful websites, a list of state boards of nursing, and a glossary of important terms.