MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, NURSING HOME NEGLIGENCE AND BIRTH INJURY

HMO MALPRACTICE

With the proliferation of health maintenance organizations (HMO’s) and managed care, the delivery of medical care to the American public has undergone a precipitous decline. 40 million people people have no health insurance and frequently receive substandard care from doctors and hospitals concerned about the "bottom line." Some HMO’s and managed care organizations have instituted financial incentives which prevent primary care doctors from referring patients for needed specialty diagnostic testing or referrals to some specialties beyond the specialty of the internal medicine or general practice or pediatric physician. Increasingly, the quality of medical care is being dessimated because profit driven corporations have replaced the individual physician as the decision maker on the medical team. Some HMO’s have rules that patients must obtain approval before even visiting an emergency room or the medical treatment will not be covered. HMO and managed care rules have created a recipe for disaster and disasters are ensuing more and more frequently in our culture. Physicians struggle with managed care organizations to obtain the care their patients need.

The number of citizens who are now members of HMO’s or PPO’s in America has increased dramatically over the years. Employers who provide health insurance benefits have frequently insisted on employee’s being covered by HMO’s or PPO’s rather than more costly traditional insurance plans as a cost-saving measure. The HMO’s are for-profit corporations and strive, above all else, to increase profits for shareholders. Quality of care frequently suffers. Patients frequently are injured and die as the consequences of cost-saving measures. Therapies are not given and patients are sent home from the hospitals prematurely.

Against this backdrop, the public cries out for reform against the well paid lobbyists of the HMO and managed care organizations who lobby politicians and stonewall efforts to reform the system. Under the ERISA laws, patients frequently cannot sue their HMO when the HMO refuses to refer a patient for needed specialty diagnostic work or care under the guise of some word game such as “that procedure is experimental.” Efforts to change the rules so that citizens can sue an HMO for such policies and procedures have been callously thwarted in Congress, which is controlled by monied interests.

Some HMO practices resemble a high volume factory. Sometimes the policies and procedures are ineffective and important diagnostic data never reaches the physician.

Mr. Davis has handled cases where blood cultures, that would have told the treating physician that a family’s child was suffering from treatable bacterial meningitis, never reached the physician and the child became horribly brain damaged. In another case, a woman became paraplegic because the HMO did not pass on to the treating physician blood count values which would have shown that the patient suffered from pernicious anemia, an easily treatable Vitamin B12 deficiency. Multi-million dollar settlements occurred in these cases.

Mr. Davis has devoted considerable time and energy to successfully litigating HMO malpractice and has gleaned much career satisfaction in helping clients who were the victims of HMO malpractice.

NURSING HOME NEGLIGENCE AND MALPRACTICE

The average age of American citizens is gradually increasing. More and more people are being faced with the necessity of obtaining elder care for their parents or loved ones in nursing homes or other institutions.

Many nursing homes are profit driven and deliver substandard care. Many people have experienced the horror of visiting nursing homes where patients are warehoused in unsupervised or negligently supervised squalor. Many nursing homes are understaffed or staffed by poorly trained caregivers. Disaster all too frequently strikes. Many federal and state regulations exist concerning standards of care in the nursing home setting. Many nursing homes fail to follow these standards.

Mr. Davis has successfully prosecuted nursing homes and nursing home employees civilly when elderly or disabled people have been injured due to nursing home malpractice. Fractured hips and decubitous ulcers (bed sores) leading to sepsis are frequent injuries. Two of these cases have tragically involved patients who were burned to death in nursing homes where the staffing was inadequate, the policies or procedures were inadequate and the required sprinkler systems were either absent or not compliant with applicable building codes.

CATASTROPHIC INFANT BIRTH INJURIES

The birth of a child is one of the most exciting and happy events in the lives of most couples. Unfortunately, sometimes a baby is injured during the prenatal or birthing process. Sometimes these injuries are unavoidable, but sometimes the injuries are caused by medical malpractice. These injuries can be catastrophic at times. A lack of oxygen during the birthing process can cause catastrophic brain injury and cerebral palsy. The cost of medical care for a child who has suffered such an injury can run into the millions of dollars over the lifetime of the child.

The economic hardship placed on a family who is raising a child suffering from this type of injury are elements of damage which Mr. Davis can help that family recover if the injuries are, in fact, caused by medical malpractice.

When a child has sustained a serious deficit or injury during the pregnancy or at the time of the birth, the child and his parents need to be represented by an experienced medical malpractice attorney. The lawyer must obtain all of the prenatal obstetrics/gynecology records and the hospital medical records for both the mother and the child. An expert obstetrician must review the medical records, along with any medical literature applicable to the case, to determine whether or not the case can be successfully prosecuted. This is a time consuming and expensive process and can take weeks or months to accomplish. Unfortunately, after all of the records have been obtained and reviewed by the appropriate expert witness, it is possible that the determination will show that the injuries were not caused by malpractice, or that due to other complicating factors, the case cannot be pursued.

Mr. Davis has handled many significant cases involving the birth of children who were injured because of prenatal malpractice or malpractice occurring during the birthing process. Cases, which can be successfully pursued, include: forceps injuries; brachial plexus injuries; failure to timely c-section; medication mistakes; damage to child during amniocentesis; failure to promptly deliver a child or perform an emergency c-section; improper evaluation of the size of the baby’s head versus the mother’s pelvis; improper treatment of bacterial infections and the like. If your child was injured by medical malpractice, it makes sense to have the case evaluated by Mr. Davis and his staff. If the case cannot be successfully prosecuted, the evaluation process will not cost the family any money. Mr. Davis pursues all such cases on a contingent fee basis, and his attorney’s fees will be paid from the recovery on behalf of the child and the child’s family.

• Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
  http://prospero.bme-mri.jhu.edu/
  
  
• MedWeb @ Emory University
  http://www.medweb.emory.edu/MedWeb/
  
  
• MedWebplus
  http://www.medwebplus.com/
  
  
• Medscape
  http://www.medscape.com/
  
  
• The National Library of Medicine
  http://www.nnlm.nlm.nih.gov/nnlm/online/