Hospital Legal Affairs
Regular advisory services to companies (“corporate legal affairs”) refer to the provision of legal support covering all matters related to the management and operation of the company. They include day-to-day legal consultations, consultations on management and new business, reviewing agreements and other legal documents, and holding training sessions for educational purposes.
However, unlike regular corporate legal affairs, medical corporations have not been provided with services that can be used promptly in actual clinical settings due to the high degree of specialization, the barriers of technical terminology, and the particularities of industry practices and regulations.
Problems involving patients in hospitals arise between patients and medical professionals who would not ordinarily be at odds with one another. However, due to regulations under the Medical Practitioners Act and other laws which include obligations to comply with a patient’s request for medical treatment, as well as ethical sentiments, medical professionals are not easily able to cease a course of treatment, even though they object to the patient’s desire. Under this structure, medical professionals can easily become caught between legal regulations and the principles ofclinical ethics, as well as patient care. For this reason, advice must be given quickly so that any potential conflict can be avoided to the greatest extent possible. Such advice needs to be practical in terms of clinical practice.
Our firm practices “hospital legal affairs” to protect the rights of doctors and other healthcare professionals and to provide back-up for medical corporations and healthcare professionals, so they may provide medical services to their fullest potential.
Specifically, in most cases, we provide initial responses to consultations from our clients on at least the same day, or even as early as a few minutes later, so that potential problems can be dealt with swiftly. We also assist in the drafting of written agreements and documents in support of medical decisions.