1. You have worked a long, busy Friday as a health care administrator at the headquarters of Quality Care, Inc., an integrated health system, based in Fairfax, Virginia. Fifteen minutes before you plan to leave for home, you receive an urgent text from the office manager at a Quality Care site in Annapolis, Maryland. She just has received a “visit” from federal agents who flash their badges and demand to see “someone in charge” who will “give them access to all office computers and hard copy files.” The chief agent produces a Subpoena Duces Tecum (from the Eastern District of Virginia federal court) for your office’s written and electronic documents. This law enforcement official says, very confidently, “My team and I will wait as long as we have to so we get what we want.” You and the office manager agree that your days just got a bit longer! This is the first federal “drive-by” that you have dealt with in your career. What legal and policy concerns should you and other Quality Care staff members address? Apply risk management concepts: what should Quality Care do – and not do in this situation? Be specific in providing guidance to Quality Care executives and the Maryland manager. 2. A physician group practice in the District of Columbia learns that one of its most senior – and trusted – members – has a serious substance abuse issue. This physician, like all other physicians in the group, is an independent contractor who works at a major DC hospital. She takes an approved medical leave of absence to get treatment for her illness. Three months later, the physician writes to the practice chair, advising him that she is ready to return to work. The practice’s chair does not know whether to inform the hospital that his colleague missed three months of work – and to disclose why she was absent. Discuss the potential legal theories of liability that the physician group and hospital each might encounter in this situation. To whom, if anyone, would the group and hospital owe a legal duty? Provide at least two recommendations each to the doctors and to hospital officials. Think of and communicate the “big picture” just as you had to do in your case study responses. each qusation 1 page
