Authorizing Assistants for Medical Work I have an assistant who handles nearly all scheduling and administration for me, personal and work. We sometimes run into trouble when a new medical/dental office says, &quot;I'm sorry, I can't talk to you, I need to talk to the patient.&quot; This means me calling, waiting on hold, transferring to the correct line...I'm sure you're familiar with the US healthcare system. Sometimes they won't even accept when I say that my assistant speaks for me. Even when they do, it's a hassle for every new provider. How does one authorize them? I have trouble imagining Jeff Bezos schedules his own colonoscopies.
That release needs to be provided in writing to each legal entity (read: office) that provides you with medical care. Providing the release verbally (ie: 'I say that my assistant speaks for me') does not cut it; the offices that agreed are technically in jeopardy of some hefty fines and are just trusting you won't turn around and report them. Most offices are going to have their own forms for this and won't accept some generic letter that you write up, sign, and send all of them. Have your assistant call each office and ask for them to fax over a copy of their release form. List your assistant as an authorized contact, sign it, and send it back to them.
I think this idea has prior art. It is called &quot;a law firm&quot;. There are many ways in which such organizations can be structured, but what you end up with is a team of people with different levels of experience, and different specialities, who are able to take on a variety of legal work. Some of that will be routine, and some of it will explode into years of complex litigation. Internal collaboration is normal, including with the aid of technology. Larger firms will have many locations and lots of people. As a client, the fees you pay are a reflection of the market. If you would like to pay $200/hour for two people rather than $400/hour for one, then a prerequisite is that those people are willing to do it. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't. It's just like paying for any other kind of service. In some practice areas, it's possible to offer low fees for &quot;bulk&quot; or &quot;routine&quot; work - sometimes because that's amenable to automation, such as with air passenger delay claims. Patent law may not fall into this category because it is genuinely very difficult to write a patent well. You have to know the law and the technology, and the starting point presented by the client may be far from expressing the actual patentable ideas, if any. That means we have a more high-touch process with specialized expertise. The long durations involved also make it unsuitable for a &quot;no win, no fee&quot; structure (that is essentially a business risk management issue, where some cases pay for the rest). As a business idea, you would have to think about how to manage all that. Maybe you can make it work.
Your premise is a little off, which changes the question somewhat. The actual clause in the 2016 Junior Doctors contract Section 3 (52) states: Where a doctor intends to undertake hours of paid work as a locum, additional to the hours set out in the work schedule, the doctor must initially offer such additional hours of work to the service of the NHS via an NHS staff bank of their choosing. The requirement to offer such service is limited to work commensurate with the grade and competencies of the doctor rather than work at a lower grade than the doctor is currently employed to work at. Additional work, such as; event and expedition medicine, work for medical charities, non-profits, humanitarian and similar organisations, or sports and exercise medicine do not fall under the scope of additional work as a locum. (note that 'locum' has a standard definition of 'a person who stands in temporarily for someone else of the same profession, especially a cleric or doctor' but is not defined in the contract itself - its a well known term that does not require further definition, but it plays an important part in your question) So, a few things from that section: Where a doctor intends to undertake hours of paid work as a locum This immediately sets limits on what the clause means - the intention is to limit locum work, not general work. The requirement to offer such service is limited to work commensurate with the grade and competencies of the doctor rather than work at a lower grade than the doctor is currently employed to work at A FY2 or later junior doctor can go elsewhere to work as a house officer if they cannot find work as a senior house officer, again restricting the clause to similar working conditions and not general work. This is very very similar to any company putting a non-compete in their contract for, say, a software developer - you need the companies permission to go do contract work for another software company for example. To specifically talk to your point about being a gardener, this clause does not cover that because the employee is not acting as a locum in their professional capacity at that point. The intention of this clause is to fill the gaps in the NHS staffing plan caused by 11 years of mismanagement and underfunding - no longer can an in-contract doctor or nurse work their 38 hour rota and then go fill a lucrative shift with a private hospital, they must offer any hours under 48 to the NHS via the employee bank - this means the bank can pay minimal wages to cover shifts it had to pay locums a lot more to cover before 2016.
Employers with 20 or more full-time-equivalent employees are usually mandated to offer COBRA coverage. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insurance/11/intro-cobra-health-insurance.asp He is not required by law to offer it to you, but is probably trying to work with you. After employment, the individual is required to pay the entire premium, and at times it may be topped up with an extra 2% toward administrative charges. They can charge you administrative fees on top of what you would have paid. Being that he does not have to offer it to you by law, he can do what he wants.
For a large organization, software licensing compliance is a very broad and intractable problem. The licensing environment is very different for the big company than it is for little tiny you. Many large companies are subject to audits by software vendors (i.e. Adobe, Oracle, etc.) in which they have to show licenses purchased for each active seat. There's a whole new INDUSTRY around maintaining license compliance. An employee bringing in their own software and installing it on a company computer complicates this vastly. That is the environment that the question should be considered within. The large company makes the decision somewhere along the way that your individual efficiency in performing your individual tasks is less important than maintaining auditable software licensing compliance. Since they own the computer/laptop/server, it's their decision. Many times it seems that corporate policies as they apply to the individual worker are obstructive and limiting, but there's a bigger picture to the situation.
1. I want use a friend who has no legal training as my "counsel," do the police have any legal recourse from allowing me to talk to him prior to interrogation? E.g., can they insist that my counsel be a member of the bar in the state where I have been arrested? Yes. If they don't want you to, you cannot talk to a friend, only a lawyer. If you got an OUI, and you're not being a jerk, they will probably let you talk to whomever you want (within reason &ndash; it's not social hour). However, they can keep you from speaking to anyone but a lawyer as that person could gain information from you that can corrupt their investigation. (E.g., they arrest you with 10 lbs. of methamphetamine. They know it's "fresh" and likely came from a local lab that they suspect you of running. You cannot be allowed to talk to just anyone, as they could help get the lab broke down, moved, destroyed). In TV shows you see attorneys doing this type of illicit thing, but in reality that is very rare. When you enter the police station to speak with a client, you must present your bar card (license to practice). Friends are not allowed in, even if you value their counsel &ndash; they are not counselors! 2. I want to consult a "team" of qualified counselors. Are there legal grounds or regulations to limit the number of individuals I consult prior to interrogation, and who I have present during interrogation? No. You can have your entire legal team with you, while preparing for court, or while being questioned, within reason. They do not need to rent a conference room to fit your 30 person legal team, but if you want 3 or so lawyers in with you, and you can afford paying each $250-$500 per hour, then have at it. Most lawyers would counsel you against this, as it creates an undue impression of limitless (hence likely illegal) funds. (But if you're a hedge fund manager, and you can show your money is legally earned, it's really your choice.) I have had occasion to go in to meet a client with co-counsel numerous times (especially in early years of practice when there is a lead attorney and second chair, so to speak, even for interrogation (which means silence by the client). They can "impede" access to some extent, though they typically don't. They can play games with your lawyer and make them wait and make you wait, but not while they are in with you, and only for so long. Once your lawyer arrives they should leave you alone. (Some courts say once you ask for counsel they need to leave you alone, but this only really matters if they get a confession from you (or any evidence) before you've (and this is what they're hoping for) recant your request for counsel and your right to remain silent.) 3. Can my contact with counsel be proscribed in any way? E.g., can the police limit the duration or schedule of contact with counsel? Can they impede or delay access to me by someone who claims to be my counsel? Once you've called your lawyer, they need to to let him or her meet with you for a reasonable amount of time before questioning. This is typically a quick meeting, just long enough to make sure you will not say a word. Even completely innocent people should keep their mouth shut &ndash; innocent people do occasionally get arrested and convicted! No matter what the police say, there is no benefit, ever, from talking to them. Some police, who know it's their last shot to get a confession and know once your lawyer gets there will never talk to you again (and they have enough to go forward without your confession in the event you just start blabbing "you did it" before they can get you to invoke your rights) will keep talking to you and tell you not to comment, just to listen, even while your lawyer sits outside. They can say you're being processed, or there's a security issue, any number of reasons for short delays if they need it. They will then go on and on about "how they can maybe help you out if you talk now, but once your lawyer arrives all bets are off." These are just tricks to get you to recant/revoke your rights and to obtain your confession. You will usually see your lawyer shortly after arrival. Can they impede or delay access to me by someone who claims to be my counsel? Yes, if your lawyer doesn't have adequate ID or cannot verify he is licensed in that state, or in another state and with local counsel. The police do not have a duty to research your lawyer's credentials, and don't have to go online and look your attorney up in the bar directory to make it easier for him or her to get to you. However, if they know the attorney, and he or she forgot his bar card, they would probably lose the confession if you confessed while they make him go get it. Most lawyers carry their bar card in their wallet, so this is not a typical problem. 4. What do police have to do to facilitate my access to my desired counselor(s)? E.g., how long can I be held after requesting an attorney without being allowed to attempt to contact one? You have a right to contact a lawyer. There is no explicit right to a phone call, although some form of contact is implied. Hence, you can usually be held 3 hours before they have to let you "contact" someone, and this is after processing. You can be held until your lawyer gets there or until your arraignment, whatever comes first. If your lawyer doesn't show up, you will be given another opportunity by the court to get your lawyer of choice there for arraignment. If you can't, and you don't want to go forward, a public defender will move to waive your right to a speedy trial and seek a continuance until you can get your counsel of choice there. If this happens, consider getting a new lawyer. What means must I be granted to find and contact the counsel of my choice? This actually differs depending on where you are and what you did. Again, you have a right to counsel but they can determine how you get this done. Sometimes there are local laws that say you get any number, or 3, or 1 completed phone call to reach your counsel of choice. If there is an overriding risk that you will call someone to communicate information that could put the investigation in jeopardy or would be adversely impact their evidentiary value in some way, even when these laws exist the police can refuse you direct contact with anyone and may implement a strict "they call" policy, where they will call the lawyer and tell them, or call your family to let them know, and they can call the lawyer. They cannot hold you for a protracted amount of time without giving you some way to get word to a lawyer; it must be reasonable. There is not a lot of law out there about what is not reasonable, because the police know, and for the most part accept, that once right to counsel has been invoked they are done. There is case law saying that 3 hours is reasonable. What is not reasonable? That is fact dependent.
Your basic regulatory umbrella for anything that stores, transmits or interacts with any private health information or health IT systems is Health Information Privacy | HHS.gov, as well as state authorities. There are severe penalties at the federal and state level for non-compliance and privacy breaches, and many other agencies - such as the DEA, state health departments, insurance companies - would have to be involved in testing and certification of such a App. You will simply not be able to distribute the App on Google or iTunes without their approval, and those distributors will not approve a App that has not been strictly vetted for privacy and HIPAA compliance. In order to distribute such as App - with a TOS that assures personal privacy and shields you from liability (if possible) - you will need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal representation for compliance. As an example, see ohwilleke's answer to What kind of lawyer should I seek to understand compliance requirements for processing credit cards?
Not at all. A US business always had the authority to require employees to be vaccinated before entering the workplace, except if a valid state law prohibits this. The EEOC has confirmed that none of the Federal laws which it enforces prevent such a requirement. The proposed mandate under the OSHA Act would merely have required a business subject to the mandate to do what it had the right to do anyway. Even if it is held that the US Federal Government does not have constitutional authority to impose such a mandate, that would not in any way impair any business which chooses to do so from imposing such a requirement on its employees, subject to the requirements under the ADA and the Civil Rights act to offer reasonable accommodations for sincere religious objections, and for disabilities that would interfere with accepting vaccination. Businesses generally are not &quot;covered entities&quot; under HIPPA, and so can ask employees for health information such as a vaccination record, if they choose to. Or they can choose to trust an employee's word on the matter.