FSB Best Lawyers in America 2008

Last week I learned that I was selected by my peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2008 in the field of "Health Care Law". This is the first year that I have been selected for the honor.

In all, six lawyers from Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso, PLLC were selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® 2008. Congratulations go out to the other honorees:

• Bob Coffield - Health Care Law
• Mike Bonasso - Commercial Litigation
• Tom Flaherty - Personal Injury Litigation (Defendants)
• Don Sensabaugh - Medical Malpractice Law (Defendants)
• Jeff Wakefield - Commercial Litigation (Defendants)
  
• Stephen Brooks - Medical Malpractice Law (Defendants)

Below is background information about Best Lawyers and the process used to select attorneys for inclusion:

Since its inception in 1983, Best Lawyers has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Because Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive peer-review survey in which more than 25,000 leading attorneys cast almost two million votes on the legal abilities of other lawyers in their specialties, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.”

2007 Healthcare Blogospere Survey

A few weeks ago my fellow blogging colleague, Fard Johnmar, announced the second edition of Taking The Pulse Of The Healthcare Blogosphere (2007 Survey). A survey co-produced by Johnmar's Envision Solutions and Trusted.MD Network.

The survey was first conducted last year (read the highlights). The survey will again look at the trends of health care bloggers so that we can all better understand why people blog about health and medical topics.

Today I finally got around to taking the survey and am passing along a recommendation to others health and medical bloggers to take a few minutes out of your busy schedule to add to the survey data. Deadline to take the survey is October 15.

Also check out Fard's interesting post from today covering the relaunch of Organized Wisdom at Healthcare Vox.

Calling All Creative West Virginians!

If you are creative and living in West Virginia (or a West Virginia expatriate) check out the upcoming Create West Virginia Conference set for November 12-14 at Stonewall Resort. More from the Create West Virginia Blog.

Medicare Physician Data: Transparency vs. Privacy

iHealthBeat provides commentary and an update on the outcome of the Consumers' Checkbook v. HHS matter involving whether or not Medicare physicians claims data should be made publicly available.

The United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Consumers' Checkbook on August 22 requiring that HHS release the physician data requested under FOIA to Consumers' Checkbook. So far HHS has not appealed the decision and the data is required to by produced by September 21.

It will be interesting to see if HHS appeals the decision. Classic example of transparency vs. privacy. Brian Kleppner has more over at that The Health Care Blog.

UPDATE (10/22/07): The WSJ Health Blog reports that HHS has decided to appeal the decision requiring that HHS release data under FOIA to Consumers' Checkbook. The decision initially required production of the data by September 21 which was then extended until October 22.

Joint Commission Launches WikiHealthCare

iHealthBeat reports about the Joint Commission's new pilot wiki, WikiHealthCare. The pilot project is an effort by the Joint Commission to create a collaborative space for open exchange of information among health care professionals.

According to the article, the site now only has 1,500 registered users and only about 10 actively posting to the wiki. What's a wiki?

Modern Healthcare has more.

Modern Day Rudy: Schmitt Happens

Who isn't inspired by a story like this (Washington Post version) about West Virginia University's starting fullback, Owen Schmitt. The story is one of determination, persistence, hard work, overcoming adversity and living out your dream. A lesson for us all.

My favorite quote from starting back and Heisman hopeful, Steve Slaton:

"He's like ‘Rudy' or something," Slaton said. "Everybody loves him."

And Schmitt's response:

"I don't understand why I get that attention. I mean, we have actual stars on this team."

Courtesy of the Daily Mail via the Washington Post.

Go Mountaineers!

Welcome Jane Sarasohn-Kahn: Health Populi

Today I received an email from my colleague, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, a health economist and management consultant, announcing that she had joined the health care blogging world. Congrats Jane!

Jane will be blogging at Health Populi. Over the past year or so I have been reading Jane's thought provoking columns for iHealthBeat and have checked out her THINK-Health site. An example is today's post looking into the priorities (and shifting costs) of Americans on spending for health insurance and technology.

Here is her introductory post and why you should read her blog:

In this blog, I will share my multi-faceted perspectives on health care. In the new wave of transparency in American health care, I seek to shed light. I want to help move along the dialogue that Americans – not just politicians and pundits, but the bulk of Americans living and working outside of legislatures -- must have regarding how to honestly, openly and boldly confront the challenges facing U.S. health care.

Changing our behavior in this new world will involve re-engaging with the U.S. health system and our innermost motivations by

• understanding what health care costs,
• taking better care of ourselves,
• getting smarter about health and health care, and,
• voting in elections.

Along with education, no single domestic issue will affect every American more directly than health care will in the next years and decades to come. Now, read on. Get smart. Go health-shopping. Demand value from those who supply you with health goods and services. Vote. The health system is yours. Act like it.

I can't agree more Jane. Don't miss subscribing to the Health Populi RSS feed.

Butterfly in West Virginia

A butterfly we noticed just outside our front door this weekend. The kids loved watching them. Saw a couple of Monarchs and then this one. What is it? No I didn't photoshop to match the colors of the butterfly with the flowers. Rick Lee eat your heart out. By the way Rick, love your recent Chicago series, especially the Cloud Gate photos.

The Economist and Health 2.0

The Economist takes a glimpse at Health 2.0.

Thanks to Scott Shreeve, MD for pointing out the article. Scott has great insight on what changes might be happening to health care as this new technology and social networking begins to invade traditional models of health care delivery. Scott is working on a white paper styled after Tim O'Reilly titled, What is Health 2.0? Enabling Technologies and Reform Initiatives for Next Generation Healthcare.

I'm looking forward to talking with Scott, Matthew, Indu and others who will be attending the Health 2.0 conference later this month. Congrats to Matthew and Indu Subyaiya, MD, co-organizers of the event, for their effort in putting together a fantastic agenda and selling the event out.

For a little more insight into the ideas behind the conference check out Indu's post from May 2007, Health 2.0: The Conference, the debate. Indu's vision for the conference:

If you don't come for Google, Esther Dyson, Revolution Health, Intuit, Sermo...come because this will be the most straight-up conversation on health care and technology you've participated in. No vested interests, no long-winded podium anesthetics, no oversized Vegas-style booths. Rather a close examination of organic and disruptive trends outside the top-down control of organizations, a reflective look at how each of us as interacts with various aspects of our health care and the demands we are going to increasingly place on the system to become more transparent, interactive and humane.

Note: If you are planning on attending the conference you may want to join the Facebook Group around the conference that hopefully others will use to generate discussion around the event. Also, if you plan to attend I would like to get together post a comment or send me an email. I will be arriving in the afternoon on the 19th.