Medical Malpractice

The expenses involved in litigation and other court procedures can be overwhelming. Plaintiffs pursuing litigation require a strong financial backup. A good lawyer charges high fees, to represent a case. A victim of personal injury is faced with growing medical expenses. Such people frequently opt for out of court settlements and receive very little compensation. Litigation financing comes to the rescue of people who wish to fight their case, but lack the means to do so. There are litigation financing companies that offer loans in the form of cash advance to plaintiffs, attorneys and law firms, to take care of litigation expenses.

Financial companies offer litigation financing for various cases, such as personal injury, malpractice and accidents. In case the settlement is delayed after the case is resolved, the plaintiffs can easily procure post-settlement, short- term loans.

Most of the time, plaintiffs are put in contact with a litigation financing company through their attorneys. For ethical reasons, an attorney is not allowed to provide finance to the plaintiff. An attorney also cannot borrow money from a financial company to pay his client's litigation expenses. When the case is successfully settled, the attorney gets his fees on a contingency basis. The litigation financing company purchases a part of the settlement charges.

It is possible for plaintiffs to obtain loans from online litigation financial companies. The litigation company first evaluates the case of the plaintiff, before approving a cash advance. The financing company then determines the amount of the loan to be sanctioned, after the evaluation of the case. The financing company purchases a part of the estimated settlement the plaintiff is expected to receive, after the case is settled.

The company offers the cash advance on a non-recourse basis. The plaintiffs are expected to repay the loan amount only if the case is resolved successfully.

There's been a recent rise in the number of Adult Daycare Home Businesses springing up everywhere around the world, what with an estimated one in four families providing care for an elderly relative today. Before you decide to jump on the group home business bandwagon, though, you need to know as much as possible. This brief guide will help.

Some questions you should ask yourself before starting an Adult Daycare home business, or any other home business for that matter, are:

• What are your talents and skills?
• Are you looking for a home based career or just to supplement your income?
• Do you have space in your home for an office?
• Is your family willing to support you in having a business based in their home?
• Are you willing to put in the necessary work it takes to get a business off the ground and to sustain it once you have?
• Do you want to help people?

The last question is particularly important when it comes to operating and starting an Adult Daycare home business for the elderly. Because if you're just doing it for the money, you're likely to be overwhelmed by the personal interaction required for this business.

Some people are happier working all day long at a computer, not having to deal with other people face to face. Or they prefer detailing people's cars or doing their lawn care to providing personal service that demands constantly interacting with people.

Everybody's different, and that's a good thing. Just understand that even if you set up an Adult Daycare home business across town from your own home, you're going to have to deal with people on a daily basis.

If you decide that starting an Adult Daycare business for the elderly is just the type of business you're looking for, you'll have to find out what the laws and regulations are, as well as what licenses are necessary in your state. There are certain to be some, and you need to know what they are in case you have to obtain any special certifications. CPR and first aid certifications are two that most states are likely going to require you to personally have.

Another thing that you'll have to look into before you buy or rent that house that you think would be just perfect starting an Adult Day Care home business, are the area's zoning regulations. This can be a sticky situation in many places, and even if there are no zoning laws or regulations against your opening a group home business where you'd like to, you could well find yourself up against a lot of resistance. It's mandatory that you know this upfront.

You can look for another location for starting a group home business for the elderly, or you just might decide that this is not the business for you.

Funding for group home businesses is not as hard to find as you might think. The Small Business Association, as well as many banks and other financial institutions, can point you in the direction you need to go to find the money you need to purchase a home for starting a group home business.

You'll want to understand all the terms, conditions, and financial obligations. You'll also want to find out if you must use your current home as collateral. Putting your own house up as collateral may be more than you're willing to risk for any new venture.

Insurance for your elderly group home business is something you'll definitely have to have. Liability insurance is mandatory. You'll also need fire and theft insurance. If you plan to offer any type of medical assistance to the people in your elderly group home, you may even need malpractice insurance.

Other insurance requirements may also be involved. Learn everything you can about the different types of insurance coverage you'll need, and then shop around for the best prices to obtain the necessary policies you'll need for starting a group home business.

Unless you plan to live in your Adult Daycare business and do everything yourself you'll need assistants and a concierge service for senior citizens. Planning for meals, transportation to doctors, dentists, hairdressers, and events, cleaning, and activities are other things that need to be considered before starting an Adult Daycare.

You will also want someone to oversee medications and ensure that people receive and take them at the proper times.

Starting a Group Home Business for the elderly is not for everybody, but if it's for you, then you'll find it tremendously rewarding. And in huge demand. Going into the elderly group home business with your eyes open and doing your homework first will assure that your Adult Daycare Home Business is a successful one.

Conversational hypnosis is a very powerful tool. You have the ability to hypnotize someone through your conversation. This skill can certainly come in handy in so many ways. In the field of business, you can use conversational hypnosis to make more sales. A salesman will simply use conversational hypnosis on a customer so that they will buy the product. An accountant can use it to talk the IRS and convince them that fraud never happened on the financial statements, even if there are obvious malpractices committed.

In the field of medicine, doctors can use conversational hypnosis to convince their patients that they are not sick, even if they are, and still charge them an exorbitant amount. Pharmaceutical companies can convince doctors to prescribe faulty medicines to doctors even if they both know that these medicines don't work at all. It gets worse if these medications are harmful. You can kill people with the improper use of hypnosis.

In the field of law, lawyers can hypnotize their opponents and force a win anytime they want. Even if they know that their clients are guilty, they can still make them win a case. They can get paid for winning cases and not by defending the truth above all else. Sometimes you may even try to hypnotize the judge. The judge may be totally clueless on what you are doing but you are have already planted the seed of hypnosis on them long before they even knew it.

You can see that conversational hypnosis can be used for so many malevolent things. You can distort the truth and hurt other people by using hypnosis in the wrong way. The ethics of conversational hypnosis is very clear. You have to put the greatest good above all else. As an individual, your conscience will dictate how you can go about it. You have to exhaust all moral angles before deciding to use hypnosis on someone.

It is clear that using hypnosis for your own personal advantage is wrong. You have to take things a step further though. If you know how to do conversational hypnosis then you shouldn't be teaching it to the people who will use it inappropriately. It is the moral responsibility of an individual capable of conversational hypnosis to ascertain whether his or her student will use the power appropriately.

If you are planning to learn conversational hypnosis then the first thing that you have to examine is your heart. Is your heart pure and can you be trusted? Will you use the power of hypnosis on innocent individuals so that you can take advantage of them? Look into your heart and ask yourself these questions. If your heart is corrupted then do not even think about learning conversational hypnosis anymore. You may end up selling your soul. If you want to learn conversational hypnosis then you have to be sure that you have a pure heart and pure intentions.

You know a lot of people who have already had lasik surgery, but you are not sure that it is right for you. What do you need to know before making an informed decision? Start with a good eye surgeon and set up an appointment for an examination. The doctor will be able to tell you whether or not you are a good candidate for lasik surgery.

There are many reasons why you may not be a good candidate and the doctor will explain these to you. Listen to him carefully and know that he has your best interest in mind. You may find that you have:

* An unstable prescription -- this means that your eye condition changes regularly.

* A severe refractive error -- to correct your extreme nearsightedness or farsightedness, it will require too much deep sculpturing and cornea reshaping.

* Large pupils -- if the pupil is too wide, then the laser beam will not be able to properly shape the eye.

* A thin cornea will not retain its structure and shape if the top layers of tissue are surgically removed.

* Abnoramally structured cornea -- this condition is not treatable with Lasik surgery.

* Pregnant or nursing -- these two conditions may change the measured refraction in your eye.

* Collagen vascular disease -- affects the collagen-containing connective tissue.

* Glaucoma or cataracts. These eye diseases may cause complications for laser surgery.

* Active herpetic keratitis -- a herpes infection in the eye.

* Diabetic retinopathy -- a potentially blinding complication of diabetes.

These are just a few of the reasons why you may not be a candidate for lasik surgery. You should be honest with the doctor and work with him and his staff to make sure that you have no hidden problems.

Make sure you go to a reputable eye surgeon and not a small medical center that may disappear in a few years. Check into their credentials-how many lasik surgeries have they performed, were there any malpractice suits against them, and ask the Better Business Bureau about them. The eyes you have are the only ones you get-a medical error would be disastrous.

You probably know someone who has already had the procedure done. Talk to them and see what they have to say-they have first-hand experience about what to expect and they may or may not recommend their eye surgeon.

If everything is okay, you will have your lasik surgery and go through your recovery period. It will take a few weeks for a complete recovery, but your eyes should get stronger and your vision clearer.

Take your time, think about your options and then make an informed decision about your lasik surgery. You may end up with 20/20 vision and never have to wear glasses or contact lenses again. Or, you may find out that you do not qualify for this surgery. Either way, you took the time to learn about the procedure and are a more informed consumer because of it.

You might think that with all the advances in Western medicine that misdiagnosis has become a rare occurrence. That's not the case.

I recently read an article that appeared in the New York Times in February 2006, that stated that autopsies have shown that doctors seriously misdiagnose fatal illnesses about 20 percent of the time. Millions of patients are being treated for the wrong disease. The 20 percent rate of misdiagnosis has not really changed since the 1930's. "No Improvement!" was how an article in the normally exclamation free journal of the American Medical Association summarized the situation. One seventh of our economy is devoted to health care and yet misdiagnosis is killing thousands of Americans every year.

Under the current medical system, doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and hospital executives are not actually paid to come up with the right diagnosis. Believe it or not, they are paid to perform tests and to do surgery and to dispense prescription drugs.

There is no bonus for curing someone and no penalty for failing, except when the mistake rise to the level of malpractice. So even though doctors have the best intentions, they have little economic incentive to spend time double checking their instincts, and hospitals have little incentive to give them the tools to do so.

Knowing this information, at a minimum, I would encourage you to get a second opinion if you find yourself facing an issue. Remember, knowledge is power. Research can also be very helpful in this situation. It is important to find a professional who truly takes quality time to asses all aspects of what may be impacting your health. Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual issues may manifest themselves in the physical body.

The first step to good health is to acknowledge the presence of pain and that all is not
well with the body. In many ways, the job of the turnaround manager is akin to that of the
physician. The first step is to diagnose the corporate patient's condition before even
attempting to prescribe the right medication. For prescription without proper diagnosis is
malpractice.

The starting point is crucial to ensure that you have the right footing. To learn any skill,
one has to take that first step. If you want to learn to swim, you have to take the first step
of plunging into the water. To learn to parachute, you have to take the first step of
jumping out of the airplane. One can read about and rehearse all the knowledge about
swimming and parachuting or any other skills. However, one will never learn the skills if
the first step is not taken to do the "real" thing. Ironically, it is found that the first step is
always one of the most difficult steps to take in any venture, for it entails stepping into
unknown territories and unchartered waters. Whether it is taking the first step to
recognise that one is unwell or taking the first step to learn a new skill, the first step is
also one of the most rewarding.

However, diagnosing the company's health is not as straightforward since many
qualitative factors are involved. Oftentimes, the management also plays the game of
denial and deception. Usually there are ample warning signs or symptoms of impending
trouble such as high attrition of good staff, declining brand value etc. However, the
management may be in the state of self-denial or does not wish to let out the knowledge
of the company's predicament. Admission of the failure may expose them to criticism by
the company's board of directors, shareholders and their peers. Unfortunately, this may
result in delays in implementing the vital remedial actions during the early stage of
under-performance. Adoption of prompt actions may have significantly improved the
company's quandary and chances of survival.

Denial and deception remind us of the former Iraqi Information Minister, Muhammed
Saeed al-Sahaf who made comical and untruth remarks about the realities of the outcome
of the US-Iraq war: "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never....They are
coming to surrender or be burned in their tanks....Who are in control, they are not in
control of anything - they don't even control themselves....Be assured. Baghdad is safe,
protected." These statements were made despite the fact that the American forces have
already landed at the Baghdad airport and within days Baghdad was captured by the
allied forces.

Some sick companies play another game of "don't know and don't care". This is
ignorance and apathy. Similar to taking care of physical health, these companies fell sick
because of not knowing what to do as well as neglect. Their "cannot be bothered"
attitude was perhaps the result of having been distracted by politics, mesmerised by new
acquisitions or focused on the wrong strategies. These have misled the management from
doing what is right for the company. As a result the company falls into ruins and tatters.
After recognising that the sick company needs treatment, sometimes the beleaguered
management's vision may be limited by the symptoms and not addressing the cause. At
this juncture, it will be useful to probe further with broad questions such as:

Is the company in trouble with the law, bank, creditors, etc?

What is the cash flow position?

Is the company up for sale?

Can the company be turned around?

Should the company be closed?

Once these broad issues are determined, the turnaround manager then ventures into
deeper issues relating to finance, marketing, operation, etc before deciding the
appropriate treatment.

Proper medicine can only be administered after the acknowledgement that there is pain.

The Murfreesboro Tennessee VA announced that it had committed a diversion from accepted medical protocol in regards to veterans who had colonoscopies performed in the VA of Murfreesboro. The lapse in accepted medical standards may have led to the veterans being exposed to HIV and Hepatitis C, due to a valve that was not properly sanitized and or attached to the medical machine used in the procedure. The valve in question can be non sterilized due to liquids that may come into contact with it during the procedure, the medical procedure was fully explained to me by a registered nurse familiar with the operation. The actual contaminated part may have never come into contact with you, but through other means diseases could have been transferred because of the non-sanatized valve. So with this said the government will settle with all affected, not at all, those days are gone if they ever were really in existence.

Using the VA as an example of how times have changed in regards to plaintiffs, lets look at the results of the medical standard deviation, in this case Veterans were exposed to HIV and Hepatitis C which are deadly diseases, you can have one or both and not be aware of it. If you test positive you then have what are called damages, and these damages are the result of the acts of the VA. That means that you do have rights as against the Federal Government, but just because you have rights does not mean the government is going to concede it is responsible for damages, the times of the changing plaintiff's case are here, and all the defense bar knows it, including the government defense attorneys.

With all cases there now appears that the VA may try to mount a defense in regards to how individuals contracted the diseases, the defense appears to center around the thought of how can you prove you got the disease from VA, it will be a defense that will require quite a lot of work to defeat. Many times people are under the impression that the government or corporations will simply hand over some type of compensation just because they made a mistake. If the those days ever existed they are long since gone, whether through TV commercials, the Mcdonald's coffee case, or the dry cleaning case of pants, the public has grown weary of lawsuits, as a result insurance companies, the government, and corporations are not so quick to simply agree to settle. The defense side of cases is aware of the climate we are in, I see no change in that climate, the clock will not reverse itself.

So if there is no change in how the defense approaches a case such as the VA case, what then? There must be a fundamental shift in how the plaintiff's attorney approaches their claim, it has to be a very centered approach, and it has to be thought through from the very moment a case is taken on. A case such as any from the VA situation cannot be approached in a settlement type fashion, there are simply to many defenses available that the government can use, to use a settlement approach from the beginning of the case is to use the tactics of forgone days. The VA case is an example of how one might be lured into thinking that you should not worry about litigating, this will be open and shut, that is incorrect logic, there will an attorney representing the VA, and why would they not pursue every avenue of defense, as the government is their client, and they have an ethical obligation to protect their client just as every attorney has that obligation. It is just not sound legal strategy to believe because someone or thing admits they committed error that they will not defend their position.

What are you rights as a veteran against the Murfreesboro VA? Your rights are under the Governmental Tort Liability Act, and Yes you do have rights. If you do test positive for any diseases related to this treatment, you have what are referred to as damages, and yes you do have legal rights, although they are somewhat different because it involves the United States Government. You have the right to sue, that is to bring a lawsuit for the malpractice committed against you, however the Federal Government is far different than a corporation in regards to seeking monetary damages in court. Your rights are no different, but the limit of damages you can recover and the certain civil procedure rules apply to a GTLA claim, in Tennessee you cannot non-suit a GTLA case, this is allowed in a non-GTLA case, should you file a non-suit in Tennessee on a GTLA your suit cannot every be brought back up, ever. A non-suit means dismissing the lawsuit and bringing it back later, that is strictly prohibited under the GTLA. The GTLA was put into place to limit the liability of towns, cities, and governmental entities.

With changing times, the GTLA, and available defenses, the days of simply filing a suit and waiting for settlement are long since over. The strategy of focusing on trial and working the case with a focused approach is the only way to work through cases, the climate is forever changed in regards to plaintiffs.

Daniel L. McMurtry, Esq