Medical Journal October 2021 Digital Edition
October 21, 20211 min
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Hospital pays $3.3 million to settle FCA claims brought by former Director of Compliance
October 21, 20218 min
By Allison Shelton and Beth Anne Jackson, Brown & Fortunato The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas recently announced a $3.3 million settlement with Tarrant County Hospital District d/b/a John Peter Smith Hospital (JPS) in Fort Worth, Texas. The settlement resulted from a whistleblower complaint filed by JPS’s former Director of Compliance, Erma Lee, under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA). Lee alleged that for several years JPS...
Mandatory vaccines for healthcare workers: a stepping-stone on the “path out of the pandemic”
October 21, 202114 min
By Marilyn Higdon, Associate, Healthcare, Fisher Phillips The Biden Administration’s sweeping vaccine mandate, a key stepping-stepping stone on its “Path Out of the Pandemic,” will soon compel COVID-19 vaccinations for the majority of healthcare workers across Texas and the rest of the country. Frequently referring to COVID-19 as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the Administration has called on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) to publish an Interim Final Rule with Comment Period...
How to plan with potential tax policy changes
October 21, 202111 min
By Catherine Lightfoot, CPA, CHBC, Director of Healthcare at EEPB As a proposed bill to help fund President Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan continues to go on its extended circle from the House Ways and Means Committee to the House and the Senate and back again until there is a version with enough votes to send to the President, how do you plan while you are waiting on the conclusion. Regardless of the discussion...
Flu is here, and so are vaccines
October 21, 20216 min
By Ted Shaw, President/CEO, Texas Hospital Association The message was clear on a recent call with hospital CEOs and state health officials: Flu is here in Texas – earlier and with more concern – and getting vaccinated is more important than ever. While it seems everyone is coughing or sneezing this season, the general public is well versed in prevention tactics due to a crash course in COVID-19 over the last year and a half....
Curcumin as an adjuvant therapy for Inflammatory Bowel Disease
October 21, 20218 min
By Jaysonn Vel, MS3, UTMB and Samuel Mathis, M.D., UTMB Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is an increasingly common intestinal condition characterized by a relapsing and remitting course of abdominal pain with a change in bowel habits. It affects millions of individuals and has severe effects on quality of life with an increase in morbidity and risk of colorectal cancer. There are two variants of IBD that are defined according to location and depth of intestinal...
Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital welcomes gastroenterologist Dr. Valentine Millien
October 21, 20212 min
Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital is pleased to welcome gastroenterologist Valentine Millien, M.D., Ph.D., to its medical staff. Millien is opening a new office for Houston Methodist Gastroenterology Associates at Clear Lake – located at 14903 El Camino Real in the Houston Methodist Primary Care Group building – to serve patients from across the Bay Area. She specializes in a wide range of gastrointestinal diseases and disorders, including reflux, indigestion, inflammatory bowel diseases, irritable bowel...
Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital welcomes Dr. Joseph Elias and a new physical medicine practice
October 21, 20213 min
Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital is pleased to welcome board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, Joseph Elias, M.D., to its medical staff. Elias will open a new practice, Houston Methodist Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Associates at Sugar Land, with two office locations on the Houston Methodist Sugar Land campus. He will treat spine and musculoskeletal injuries and perform electrodiagnostic (EMG/NCS) testing and ultrasound injections at the Houston Methodist Orthopedics & Sports Medicine building located in Sugar...
Raimer named president of UTMB
October 21, 20214 min
The University of Texas System Board of Regents approved a measure naming Dr. Ben Raimer the president of the University of Texas Medical Branch, effective immediately. Raimer was appointed interim president of UTMB in August 2019 with the expectation that he would be in the position for a short period while a national search for a new president was conducted. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit. As interim president, Raimer has steered the 130-year-old medical...
New study: healthy relationship program reduces adolescent relationship abuse and physical violence
October 21, 20214 min
A study found that a healthy relationship curriculum can reduce physical dating violence among adolescents. The multi-year study, led by Jeff Temple, director of the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Center for Violence Prevention, recruited 24 Texas middle schools for the randomized controlled trial in 2017. The study compared students who received the standard health curriculum versus students in schools that implemented the Fourth R healthy relationship curriculum. Findings demonstrated that the Fourth R, adapted for a 7th grade, ethnically diverse audience of...