Law Firm Resources & News

The typical medical school education teaches it’s doctors-to-be to match the patient’s symptoms to a mental medical encyclopedia of diagnoses. (A great episode from the TV comedy Seinfeld comes to mind wherein Kramer’s complaints of certain symptoms are correctly diagnosed by the doctor in training as gonorrhea!) However, Dr. Jerome Groopman, a professor of medicine…

Federal officials fined a Kansas City nursing home $10,000 in the November death of a resident whose neck became pinned between a bed rail and mattress, reported The Kansas City (KS) Star. The facility violated two federal regulations, a state regulation, and a state law in its handling of the Alzheimer’s resident, according to an…

We typically report the bad news surrounding nursing homes and bad medical care. Well, here we report some good news! A recent furnace malfunction at the Woodhaven Nursing Home in Montvale, Virginia led to an orderly and timely evacuation of all endangered residents – most importantly, no one was hurt or injured! The furnace malfunction…

I want to recommend a resource to those reading our blog and looking for a good resource on important information on America’s number one health issue – the abuse of the elderly. The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) is a national resource for elder rights, law enforcement and legal professionals, public policy leaders, researchers,…

If you are considering moving into an assisted living facility you better read the lengthy series of articles published by the Washington Post in 2004 on problems with Virginia’s assisted living industry. Assisted living facilities are designed to offer more freedom to its residents, who are often more healthy than those residing in nursing homes.…

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has oversight responsibility for 18,000 nursing homes in the U.S. receiving state or federal support (read money). However, CMS is doing a bad job of punishing those facilities which are providing substandard and negligent care. According to a report issued by the Department of Health and Human…

The chances of getting HIV or hepatitis C from donated blood have been all but eliminated thanks to sophisticated screening. However, there are still plenty of risks. Scientists recently discovered that certain antibodies in the blood of women who have ever been pregnant can cause a reaction known as transfusion-related acute lung injury or TRALI.…

Did you know that Virginia ranked 9th in the United States in 2005 for the most registered sex offenders residing in nursing homes? Not a statistic of which to be proud! How can we place our physically and mentally declining loved one in a facility where they are susceptible to sexual predators? According to a…

As I approach the half-century mark in age, I am well aware of the recommendations for a colonoscopy screening made by most medical professionals. The upside is tremendous! Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. During colonoscopy, precancerous polyps can be removed and biopsies can be done on tissue…

Did you know your local hospital can charge you $10 for a Tylenol? We have often discussed on this blog, some of the inconsistencies in hospital rates. For example, if you have Blue Cross insurance, they may have a contract with the hospital that says they will only pay $7 for the Tylenol. Medicare (which…