Psychologist testifies on behalf of Catholic Diocese of Green Bay in fraud case

by Jim Collar
Gannett Wisconsin Media
http://www.greenbaypressgazzette.com/
Originally published May 18, 2012

A psychologist hired by the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay said two brothers who were sexually assaulted by a priest in 1978 suffered only minor trauma as a result.

Attorneys for the church began calling their witnesses Thursday in the Outagamie County civil lawsuit alleging fraud against the diocese. Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield say the diocese knew former priest John Feeney sexually assaulted others before 1978 and fraudulently misrepresented his safety when assigning him to Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church.

In their 2008 civil lawsuit, the Merryfields cite “profound psychological damage” as a result of the assaults.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Ken Pope for this lead.

Backers of health insurance rate regulation edge closer to ballot

Los Angeles Times
Originally published May 19, 2012

Supporters of a proposed ballot measure seeking tighter regulation of health insurance rates in California turned in 800,000 petition signatures, confident that they will qualify for the Nov. 6 election.

In the coming weeks, county election offices and the California secretary of state will determine whether the measure meets the requirement for 504,760 valid signatures of registered voters. The deadline to qualify is June 28.

The initiative is expected to spark an expensive campaign battle over rising health insurance rates, which have angered thousands of California consumers in recent years. This measure seeks to regulate rate increases for health policies sold to individuals and small businesses, which cover about 5 million people. It doesn't affect plans purchased by larger employers that cover about 15 million Californians.

The entire story is here.

For Hospitals and Insurers, New Fervor to Cut Costs

By Reed Abelson
The New York Times - Health
Originally published May 23, 2012

Giselle Fernandez is only 17 but she has had more than 50 operations since she was born with a rare genetic condition. She regularly sees a host of pediatric specialists, including an ophthalmologist, an endocrinologist and a neurologist at UCLA Health System.

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After years of self-acknowledged profligacy, hospitals, doctors and health insurers say there is a strong effort under way to bring medical costs under control. Their goal is to slash the rate of growth in the nation’s $2.7 trillion health care bill by roughly half to keep it more in line with overall inflation.

Private insurers, employers and government officials are providing urgency to these efforts, and the federal health care law passed two years ago helped accelerate them.

Even if the Supreme Court decides next month to declare the entire law unconstitutional, many experts in the field say the momentum is likely to continue.

The entire story is here.

Waiting for Health Care

By Peter Nicks
The New York Times - Op-DOCS
Originally published May 20, 2012

“The Waiting Room” developed from stories my wife, a speech pathologist at Highland Hospital, told me about the struggles and resilience of her patient population. And a few years ago, as the contentious vote for health care reform got louder, it occurred to me that the people who were not participating in the debate were the very people we were fighting over: those stuck in waiting rooms at underfunded public hospitals all over the country. How would the patients in the waiting room at Highland Hospital respond to President George W. Bush’s statement, echoed by many others, that we already have universal health care in this country because, by law, nobody can be turned away from an emergency room for lack of ability to pay?

The entire story is here.

Individual Health Policies Fall Short, a Study Finds

By Reed Abelson
The New York Times - Health
Originally published May 23, 2012

More than half of all medical insurance policies sold to individuals now fail to meet the standards of coverage set by the federal health care law under review by the Supreme Court, a new study says.

Even if the law is upheld, employer-provided insurance plans are likely to continue to be more generous, but the law would significantly improve the quality of coverage for individuals in several ways, the researchers concluded.

Insurers would be required, for example, to limit how much people pay toward their own medical bills, even if they have a chronic and expensive condition. Insurers would also have to provide a comprehensive set of benefits, like maternity coverage that is now excluded by some policies, and cover pre-existing medical conditions, which may be excluded under certain policies.

The entire story is here.

Patient information breach confirmed

Officials: Staffer copied confidential data at Reading Hospital for training purposes

By Dan Kelly and Ron Devlin
The Reading Eagle
Originally published May 18, 2012

Reading Hospital's medical records system was breached recently by an employee who copied sensitive patient information and used it for training purposes, hospital officials confirmed Thursday.

Medical test results, diagnoses, prescribed medications and other data legally classified as Protected Health Information on 12 patients was made public without the hospital's knowledge or the patients' consent.

Susan Heffner, privacy officer for the hospital, said it was the hospital's first breach of patient health information.

"This was old school," Heffner said. "Someone made paper copies of records."

The entire story is here.

Sanctioned Psychiatrist Gets First NIH Grant in 3 Years

by Jocelyn Kaiser
ScienceInsider
May 22, 2012

Dr. Nemeroff

A psychiatrist whose failure to disclose drug company income contributed to a furor over conflicts of interest in biomedical research has just received his first National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant in 3 years.

Charles Nemeroff's lax reporting of at least $1.2 million in drug company payments to his employer, Emory University, and similar payments to other academic psychiatrists prompted a 2007 Senate investigation.

Nemeroff stepped down as chair of psychiatry at Emory, and NIH suspended a $9-million grant he held for a depression study. In December 2008, Emory barred him from applying for NIH funding for 2 years.

The rest of the story is here.

A prior blog post about Dr. Nemeroff can be found here.

Leading Psychiatri​st Apologizes for Study Supporting Gay 'Cure'

By Benedict Carey
The New York Times
Originally published on May 18, 2012

Dr. Spitzer

The simple fact was that he had done something wrong, and at the end of a long and revolutionary career it didn’t matter how often he’d been right, how powerful he once was, or what it would mean for his legacy.

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry, lay awake at 4 o’clock on a recent morning knowing he had to do the one thing that comes least naturally to him.      

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Now here he was at his computer, ready to recant a study he had done himself, a poorly conceived 2003 investigation that supported the use of so-called reparative therapy to “cure” homosexuality for people strongly motivated to change.

What to say? The issue of gay marriage was rocking national politics yet again. The California State Legislature was debating a bill to ban the therapy outright as being dangerous. A magazine writer who had been through the therapy as a teenager recently visited his house, to explain how miserably disorienting the experience was.

And he would later learn that a World Health Organization report, released on Thursday, calls the therapy “a serious threat to the health and well-being — even the lives — of affected people.”

The entire story is here.

Clinical Challenges in the Internet Era

By Glen O. Gabbard, M.D.
American Journal of Psychiatry

Here's a central passage from the initial case presentation:

[begin excerpt]

Much to the treatment team's surprise, within a week of Mr. R's first outpatient appointment, Mrs. R had begun posting disparaging comments on various web sites about the quality of her son's care, specifically naming the treating resident.

The comments described the treating resident as well as other members of the treatment team in derogatory terms. 

In addition, Mrs. R made comments that were vehemently antipsychiatry, including a statement that psychiatrists collude with pharmaceutical companies to generate profit rather than treat illness.

She posted multiple comments in the days following certain clinic visits; the comments could be found easily by anyone who did a Google search using the treating resident's name.

The comments initially appeared on both a personal blog and a highly popular web site, later cropping up also on web sites that serve as general forums for consumer dissatisfaction and on news outlets as user-generated content.

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Two main concerns arose from the ensuing dialogue. Foremost was the potential for the mother's online comments to undermine Mr. R's care. For example, awareness of his mother's comments could exacerbate Mr. R's paranoia, leading to a disruption in his trusting relationship with the resident and a possible interference with his adherence to treatment. Moreover, the tone of the mother's comments suggested a fundamental disagreement with the treatment team's approach to her son's care, one that could potentially lead to an impasse. In the absence of a satisfactory working relationship with Mr. R's mother, the team would need to consider discharging him with a referral to another provider. Were they to do so, however, apart from feeling disappointed at not being able to continue providing Mr. R's care, the team would risk appearing either to be punishing him for his mother's actions or abandoning him for no clear reason. Either interpretation might fuel the paranoid perceptions he had regarding mental health care providers.

The second concern was that the mother's comments could damage the reputation of the treating resident. The resident initially did not think to be worried about his reputation, since he felt confident that he was well regarded by those who knew him and had observed his work with patients. Once this concern was raised, however, the resident thought of the potential impact the mother's public comments might have if he sought employment or further training outside his current institution. Given the fact that there is only limited public commentary concerning residents, a few negative Internet postings might adversely affect the opinions of potential patients, peers, or employers. Hence, the situation presented a quandary regarding how to respond to the comments posted online by Mr. R's mother while trying to avoid both potential harm to the patient and potential harm to the resident.

 (cut)

 Discussion: 

When I was asked to consult on this case, I felt a good deal of empathy for the resident.

Here he was, delivering good psychiatric care to a young man with severe illness, but receiving criticism rather than appreciation from the family. 

I recognized that there is now a public exposure inherent in psychiatric practice that can be daunting even to experienced clinicians but may be especially painful to vulnerable residents who are striving to become competent psychiatrists. 

[end excerpt]

Here's how the article ends:  

What can we do as a profession in the face of these challenges? The proliferation of Facebook, Internet forums, Twitter, blogs, and chat rooms is a juggernaut that cannot be stopped. We must live with these new intrusions into our professional lives and develop creative solutions. Institutions can develop policies so that ad hoc groups do not have to be assembled whenever delicate situations with potential liability arise.

Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals can do periodic Internet searches of themselves to keep abreast of any personal or professional information about them that may have implications for their reputation. In some cases, web site administrators may be contacted who will remove what is posted. Those who use social networking sites like Facebook should probably use all available privacy settings so that personal information about them is not available to the public.

The education of psychiatric residents and other mental health professionals should include discussions of common challenges that occur in the Internet era so that clinicians have some preparation for dealing with them when they emerge. Finally, guidelines regarding how to continue the treatment and how to respond to the attacks should be developed. Academic psychiatry has a long tradition of establishing protocols to deal constructively with difficult events in the trainee's life, such as patient suicide or assault. Similar forms of support and assistance can be brought to bear to assist with challenges stemming from the Internet."

 Thanks to Ken Pope for this information.

 The entire article is here.

Membership is needed to acces this information.

Gabbard GO. Clinical challenges in the internet era. Am J Psychiatry. 2012

May;169(5):460-3. PubMed PMID: 22549206.