The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law enacted in 1986 to stop the practice of "patient dumping," or turning patients away from emergency rooms based on their lack of ability to pay. Under EMTALA, any hospital that has an emergency room and that receives federal funding must provide any individual coming to its premises with a medical screening examination to determine if an emergency condition or active pregnancy labor exists. If so, the hospital is required to stabilize the patient's condition prior to transferring the patient to another facility, subject to a few narrowly defined exemptions. The transfer must be appropriate and meet certain conditions.

Medical Malpractice Countersuits

Medical Malpractice Countersuits

Compensating the Expert Medical Malpractice Witness

Before the trial begins, the expert physician and the attorney should have a crystal clear understanding about the amount of the payment and who is responsible for that payment. Generally, it is considered unethical for a medical expert witness to agree to a payment based on the amount of the award. Under agreements between medical societies and bar associations in some states, it is the obligation of the attorney, not the client, to compensate the expert.

Malpractice Liability of Sports Medical Care Providers

Children and young adults are playing a large variety of sports in ever-increasing numbers. As the number of participants increases, so does the occurrence of sports-related injuries and deaths resulting in more medical malpractice actions against team physicians and sports trainers.

Obtaining Substance Abuse Records in Medical Malpractice Cases

If you are a plaintiff in a medical malpractice action, you might be seeking information on the issue of whether or not the physician who treated you had a substance abuse problem that might have contributed to his or her claimed negligence. If you are a physician who is the object of a medical malpractice action, you might be looking for information on whether the patient's injury was the result of his or her own drug problem. Whatever, the reason, it is not uncommon for one or both parties to try to obtain substance abuse records.