By The Star Staff
With the attendance of professionals linked to the health industry in the United States and Puerto Rico, the Sixth Health Law Symposium of the Puerto Rico Hospital Association concluded over the weekend.
The symposium featured speakers who addressed topics such as medical malpractice and its current challenges in both the federal and commonwealth courts, the management of artificial intelligence, legal consequences and compliance with new labor regulations, and legal aspects in the application of “clinical bioethics” in the hospital setting.
An experienced group of resources and speakers on the topics discussed was assembled at the event, such as: Mary Grady Walsh (vice president of claims at MedPro Group), Roberto J. Torres Antommattei (an attorney and professor at the Catholic University of Puerto Rico School of Law), Dr. Brian Anderson (CEO of the Health Coalition-CHAI), Brenda Rosado Aponte (a prosecutor from the Department of Justice’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit), José Luis Soto (special agent in charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General), Jorge Pizarro and María Elisa Echenique-Arena (experienced labor lawyers from the law firm Pizarro & González), Coral M. Rivera Torres (legal adviser to Episcopal Health Services), Belinda L. Toro (CEO of Doctors’ Center Hospital Orlando Health), Moraima Torres Toro (an attorney and legal adviser for Hospital Damas), José Escobar (the Mennonite System’s director of legal affairs) and Miglisa L. Capo Suria (vice president of legal affairs at Metro Pavía Health System).
Marie Carmen Muntaner, legal adviser of the Puerto Rico Hospital Association and organizer of the event, said the symposium reached a valuable consensus in the legal sector through a comprehensive discussion of the punitive damages incorporated in the civil code and their effect on making health services more expensive on the island, and how the situation promotes the exodus of doctors, and increases and complicates the costs of litigation.
It was emphasized that Puerto Rico already has a punitive mechanism through the Medical Licensing Board to revoke the licenses of doctors who have been found to have acted in serious disregard for the health and safety of a patient.
“Likewise, the keynote lecture was presented by Dr. Brian Anderson, in his first appearance as a speaker in Puerto Rico, who revealed the inherent risks of artificial intelligence due to the lack of uniformity in the mediation of satisfaction and precision of the regulatory agencies of the programs that have some element related to this topic,” Muntaner said. “Meanwhile, the Office of the Inspector General of the federal Department of Health and Human Services addressed topics such as fraud prevention, how investigations are carried out, and how to avoid being prosecuted for not cooperating or destroying evidence.”
The attendees also discussed the jurisdiction of the MFCO agencies, the Office of the Inspector General and the island Department of Justice to prosecute doctors, hospitals or other health entities that commit fraud and offered several examples of cases investigated and prosecuted in Puerto Rico and by local authorities and by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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