The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued ten penalties on August 15, 2013 to California hospitals along with fines ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 per hospital and totaling $675,000. The following hospitals received penalties: Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Oakland, Alameda County Barlow Respiratory Hospital, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Read more…
Senate Bill 304, the California Medical Board sunset legislation, was meant to be the vehicle for broad reform of the doctor discipline system in California. Last minute amendments on August 12, 2013, eliminated a key enforcement reform that would have moved all staff investigating dangerous doctors into the Department of Read more…
As a leader in Professional Licensing Law, Health Care Law, and Malpractice Defense Law, most of our clients come to us with professional liability insurance. Professional liability insurance, which is also called Errors and Omissions insurance (E&O) or Malpractice insurance, is type of insurance which provides insurance coverage for liability Read more…
The longstanding purpose of license discipline laws is to protect the public from incompetent practitioners. Although the standards differ somewhat from agency to agency, almost every licensing agency has laws that allow it to take disciplinary action against a licensee when their conduct falls below what is expected of the Read more…
On June 4, 2013, under threat from the state legislature, the Medical Board of California (“MBC”) met to embark on a search for new leadership and began to earnestly consider a host of proposals aimed at combating reckless prescribing of physicians. The state legislature intends to abolish the MBC at Read more…
Steven L. Simas, founder and owner of Simas & Associates, Ltd., was interviewed for and quoted within an article recently published by Law360, a LexisNexis Company. The article, entitled “Doctors’ Hospital Jobs Imperiled by California Hight Court Ruling“, was written by Jeff Overley and published on June 12, 2013. The Read more…
Steven L. Simas, owner and founder of Simas & Associates, Ltd., is yet again hosting another Health Care workshop in Sacramento, California. The topic is the always important “Medical Records as a Defense to Your License to Practice”. The workshop will examine the California Medical Board’s standards for recordkeeping and Read more…
The Medical Board of California is the first licensing board to adopt regulations for AB 2699, Bass (Chapter 270, Statutes of 2010). AB 2699 specifically provides an exemption from the licensure and regulation requirements for a health care practitioner licensed or certified in good standing in another state or states, who Read more…
On February 26, 2013, Steven L. Simas, founder and owner of Simas & Associates, Ltd., gave a presentation at the Blue Goose Event Center in Loomis, California. The presentation was part of the Winter Lecture Series hosted by Loomis Basin Veterinary Clinic. The topic of the presentation was “Veterinary Medical Records as Read more…
Physicians do business with many people and entities in their medical practice. This includes patients, billing services, insurance companies (including health maintenance organizations (HMO) and preferred provider organizations (PPO)), liability insurance providers, government providers (such as Medicare and Medi-Cal), and governing agencies (such as the Medical Board of California (MBC) Read more…