COVID-19

By Lesley McClurg After five months working shifts at an emergency department in Oakland, Douglas Frey says he’s mentally and physically spent. Most days the tall, athletic-looking 47-year-old nurse ends his shift depleted by what he calls an undercurrent of tension. Every day Frey worries he’ll make a mistake — picking up a contaminated mask,…

By Jennifer Kay A Florida chiropractor allegedly paid for Netflix, a gym membership, and other personal expenses with the more than $200,000 in small business loans he received from federal Covid-19 funding, the Justice Department said. Dennis Nobbe, 63, of Miami, made his initial court appearance Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern…

Yesterday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are announcing that payment is available to physicians and health care providers to counsel patients, at the time of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing, about the importance of self-isolation after they are tested and prior to the onset…

By Andis Robeznieks The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the national public health problem of physician burnout and weakening patients’ tie to the essential physician care they need to manage chronic conditions. These are among the insights that AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD, shared during an online program hosted by The Atlantic magazine examining how…

By Melissa L. Jampol Despite rollbacks to Medicare and Medicaid requirements for clinical laboratory services during the Covid-19 pandemic, labs are still targets for prosecution under the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act. Epstein Becker Green attorneys say there’s been no EKRA guidance from the DOJ, which has stated its intent to aggressively pursue Covid-19 fraud,…