Yesterday, the Texas Senate’s Committee on Business and Commerce voted 7-2 to approve a substitute Senate Bill 1264 that was introduced in an effort to protect Texas patients from incurring surprise out-of-network medical bills.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ordered a Texas federal court to allow a law firm to intervene in a case over a contingency fee dispute with a client following arbitration proceedings. 

Under 35 U.S. Code § 284, a patentee involved in patent infringement litigation is entitled to recover damages “adequate to compensate for the infringement.”

S.I. Strong, Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law, has published “Past As Prologue: Arbitration as an Early Common Law Court,” 57 Houston Law Review__ (2020, Forthcoming); University of Missouri School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2019-05.

by Holly Hayes Karl Bayer and I taught a three-hour course at the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) national meeting in Chicago last week. Our topic: Introducing Conflict Resolution Skills in Health Care. We summarized how conflict is viewed in the health care setting, reviewed a cost of conflict calculator, and used case studies from Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury, The Power of a Positive No by William Ury, and Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as you Negotiate by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro to teach conflict engagement skills. The reasons for working together in healthcare include: protecting/improving on-going relationships and improving patient safety, to meet regulatory standards, and for financial reasons — no margin, no mission. A study of nurses’ experiences with disruptive behavior published in the Journal of Nursing Care Quality summarized it well: “Disruptive behavior in healthcare has been identified as a threat to quality of care, nurse retention, and a culture of safety.” Read more here. The Joint Commission, National Patient Safety Foundation, American Medical Association (AMA) and ACHE have all made statements or developed standards or codes of conduct which support the concept that a collaborative relationship among care givers contributes to the provision of high quality patient care. As part of a series, in the next few weeks we will publish the real-life example used for our cost of conflict calculator and the healthcare case studies we used in our teaching. Technorati Tags: Healthcare, Mediation Holly Hayes is a mediator at Karl Bayer, Dispute Resolution Expert where she focuses on mediation of health care disputes. Holly holds a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University. She can be reached at holly@karlbayer.com.

A public hearing was held yesterday on a collaborative healthcare bill currently before the 82nd Texas Legislature which would establish a Texas Institute of Health Care Quality and Efficiency. SB 8, which seeks “to improve health care quality, accountability, and cost containment in this state by encouraging health care provider collaboration, effective health care delivery models, and coordination of health care services,” was referred to the Health & Human Services Committee on February 17th. The bill’s author, Senator Jane Nelson, is also the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. The full text of the bill is available here. You may download audio and video of public hearings before the Committee on the Health and Human Services Committee’s website. You may also monitor this and other bills as they move through the Texas Legislature here. The last day of the regular Texas legislative session will be Monday, May 30, 2011. Disputing previously discussed SB 8 here and here. Technorati Tags: Healthcare, Texas Legislation ?