Mid-Atlantic Health Law TOPICS

Duty to an HIV-Positive Employee's Spouse: Did you know that Maryland's highest appellate court recently decided that an employer had no duty to an employee's spouse either to test her husband for HIV, or to explain the significance of test results to the spouse's husband? The case, Jane Doe v. Pharmacia & Upjohn Company, Inc., involved a pharmaceutical company that cultivated and harvested HIV cultures.
HMO Non-Participating Provider Payments: Did you know that the provision of Maryland law that mandates the amount that HMOs must pay non-participating providers did not "sunset"? The applicable provision prescribes that a payment for a particular service provided by a health care provider not under written contract with an HMO is the greater of 125% of the rate the HMO presently pays for that service to participating providers, or the rate the HMO paid for that service to participating providers as of January 1, 2000. This statute had a sunset provision (a provision that automatically repeals the statute) effective June 30, 2005. However, the Maryland General Assembly deleted the sunset provision prior to June 1, 2005, and, therefore, the law has stayed in place.
AMA Entitled to Reproduction Cost, Not Retail Price, for Subpoenaed Documents: Did you know that a federal appellate court ordered managed care providers to pay the American Medical Association (AMA) only the cost of reproduction of subpoenaed confidential surveys, not the amount the AMA charges its members for the surveys. In Klay v. All Defendants, managed care providers had subpoenaed multiple Patient Care Physician surveys from the AMA, which was a non-party to a suit brought by physicians against the managed care providers. Although these surveys would ordinarily be sold by the AMA for a total price of $195,000, the AMA was only entitled to its reproduction costs. The court reasoned that confidentiality provisions prevented the re-disclosure of the surveys outside the litigation, and, therefore, protected the value of the reports and permitted the AMA to continue selling the surveys to its customers at market prices.