Reviews

Stephen Sestanovich (ed.), Rethinking Russia's National Interests. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 1994, xii + 115pp., $14.95 p/b.

Neil Malcolm, (ed.), Russia and Europe: An End to Confrontation? London and New York: Pinter Publishers, for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1994, xi + 240pp., £35.00.

Douglas W. Blum (ed.), Russia's Future: Consolidation or Disintegration? Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA & Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, 173pp., £33.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Lynn D. Nelson & Irina Y. Kuzes, Property to the People. The Struggle for Radical Economic Reform in Russia. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xi + 268 pp., £48.00 h/b, £16.00 p/b.

Richard F. Kaufman & John P. Hardt (eds) for the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, The Former Soviet Union in Transition. Armonk, NY, York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1993, xxiv + 1222pp.

Michael Jakobson, Origins of the Gulag. The Soviet Prison Camp System 1917–1934. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1993, xiv+ 176pp., $28.00.

Paul R. Gregory, Before Command: An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five‐Year Plan. Princeton; NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, viii + 188pp., £30.00.

Helene Seppain, Contrasting US and German Attitudes to Soviet Trade, 1917–91. Politics by Economic Means. New York & Basingstoke: St Martin's Press and Macmillan, 1992, xiv + 349pp.

Graham Smith (ed.), The Baltic States: The National Self‐determination of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. London: The MacMillan Press Ltd, 1994, xii + 214pp., £40.00.

Jan Zaprudnik, Belarus: At a Crossroads in History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, xxiii + 278pp., £11.95 p/b.

Dirk Kretzschmar, Die Sowjetische Kulturpolitik 1970–1985. Bochum: Universitatsverlag Dr N. Brockmeyer, 1993, xxvi + 873pp., DM89.80.

Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols against the Symbols of Power; The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland. Pennsylvania, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994, xiv + 322pp., £38.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

Ljerka Fulgosi & Vlasta Vince‐Ribaric (eds), Hundred Testimonies: The Moving Accounts of Croatian Displaced Persons and War Prisoners. Zagreb: Society of Croatian Professional Women and INA Consulting, 1994, 196pp., $20.00.

Theodor Bergman, Gert Schaefer & Mark Seldon (eds), Bukharin in Retrospect. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xxv +251pp.     

Issues raised by respiratory therapy arrangements

In large part due to the foregoing issues, Medicare program officials have focused on respiratory therapy as an area with great potential for abuse, and may well introduce significant reforms in the near future. Accordingly, any contractual arrangements for respiratory therapy programs of the type discussed above should be carefully reviewed for compliance with Medicare requirements and for a realistic assessment of the parties' potential exposure to liability under the anti-kickback statute. At a minimum, these agreements should provide for short "without cause" termination provisions, or include a so-called "jeopardy" provision that permits the parties to renegotiate or terminate their contract if significant changes occur in, or if the current arrangement is found or threatened to be found to violate, applicable law.     

As outcomes measurement and management become widespread, providers should beware of legal pitfalls

Until new statutes and court decisions clarify the law applicable to outcomes research, providers will continue to face new questions. In the meantime, paying careful attention to satisfying the requirements of existing laws protecting peer review information will put providers in the best position to minimize their exposure. Providers should review their current outcomes measurement and management systems to ensure that (1) they are structured to take full advantage of the confidentiality protections available under state law, and (2) appropriate access to outcomes data for those who need it is clearly provided for in the relevant documentation.     

The HIV-infected health care provider. Doe v. Attorney General of the United States

Doe demonstrates that once an employer enters into a relationship with an individual and thereafter determines that he or she may be disabled, the employer has the right to ask the individual questions about the possible disability when those questions are relevant to assessing his or her qualifications for continuing on the job. In fact, once a health care provider is on notice that an employee's or physician's disability may render the employee or physician no longer qualified, thereby potentially endangering patients, the provider is required to determine whether the person is qualified for the job. In these sensitive matters, employers must draw a fine line between unreasonably following up on every rumor on the one hand, and on the other hand investigating reliable information when there may indeed be a direct threat to patients.     

The system's rigged — or is it?

From the beginning of the Seventies until almost the end of the Eighties, the Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands concentrated a major part of its resources on combatting white collar and corporate crime. This effort climaxes in a number of spectacular fraud trials, involving in one case the directors of a large commercial bank, in another high-ranking public officials. Almost all were acquitted. As dramatically as interest in white collar and corporate crime had increased, so too did it decline at the end of the Eighties, until by now public interest in fraud is primarily concerned with social security frauds at one end of the scale, and money laundering by organised crime at the other. This article examines the rise and fall of the fraud-issue in Holland, the parts played by the Public Prosecution Service and the media, and the structural (economic and social) limitations to the criminalisation of white collar and corporate behaviour.