Clinical trials are research studies conducted with people who volunteer to take part. Most insurers deem clinical trials experimental and either refuse to cover an insured's costs associated with participation in a clinical trial or limit coverage to certain costs.
In 1986, Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) or the "anti-dumping law," based on findings that indigent uninsured patients were being transferred from private hospitals to public ones because they could not pay for treatment. Under EMTALA, any hospital that receives Medicare funding is prohibited from transferring a patient who presents at the emergency department until that patient has been medically screened, and, if necessary, treated and stabilized.
Tele-health frequently involves the use of two-way interactive audio/video telecommunications, computers, and telemetry to deliver health services to remote patients and to facilitate information exchange between primary care physicians and specialists. Medicare now reimburses healthcare providers in eligible areas for a number of tele-health services.
In general, noncompete covenants in physicians' contracts require the physician to agree not to compete with his or her employer for a certain period of time within a certain geographical area. Ordinarily, noncompete covenants in employment contracts will be upheld if they are not too broad in time or in area.
It is not always clear whether physicians are required, under mandatory reporting laws, to file a report when a minor's pregnancy by an adult partner violates state statutory rape laws. Whether a physician is required to report a consensual sexual relationship between a minor patient and an adult depends largely on the state's mandatory reporting law.
