Legall Bug
Filed under: Birth Injuries, Malpractice | Tags: attorney, attorneys, birth injury, c-section, cesarean, lawyer, lawyers, medical malpractice
In recent years, birth injury law has been inundated with issues surrounding cesarean section birth. Exploding in popularity, this once rarely used procedure is a lightening rod for controversy and lawsuits. Why is it used so often in today’s medical community? Soaring malpractice premiums, technology that sometimes sets off false alarms, physicians pressed for time and mothers-to-be conflicted by fear.
In the past eight years alone, New York babies born by cesarean section increased 42 percent. And nothing is slowing down this rate, which is alarming many groups around the country, including The World Health Organization, which calls for a maximum cesarean section rate of 15 percent. Anything above that “seems to result in more harm than good,” according to a 2006 research summary in the British medical journal Lancet.
All the stakeholders, including physicians, midwives, childbirth experts and researchers say that because mothers are older, more obese, more prone to multiple births and less healthy, the surgical risks are higher, which encourages the “safer” procedure of a C-section. Others contend that overused interventions to induce and augment labor, manage pain and monitor for fetal distress have driven cesarean rates to unnecessary heights.
“Women are getting cheated by not being encouraged to believe both in their ability to birth and that birth can be a positive experience,” said Christie Craigie-Carter, Hudson Valley coordinator of the International Cesarean Awareness Network.
Many mothers out there are left wondering why they were given a cesarean, some even find out after the fact. These mothers, who wanted to experience vaginal birth, were forced to under go a procedure that they didn’t want. “There is an awful lot of lying to women about cesarean,” said Dr. Marsden Wagner. “All of those thousands of women who are getting unnecessary cesareans in New York State are at double or more risk of dying and the babies are at risk of dying.”
If you are one of these mothers and believe you have a birth injury or medical malpractice case due to a C-section procedure or other medical process, contact our New York City attorneys today. We are conveniently located in Manhattan.
Nursing home negligence has been an issue for decades. Far too many of our senior citizens suffer at the hands of those who are supposed to care for them. Hopefully, this will be addressed by a new nursing home quality rating system set up by the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Homes that receive federal funds through Medicare or Medicaid are eligible. The scoring is based on a 5-star quality rating system and was created to help consumers, their families, and caregivers compare nursing homes more easily through a special website. A facility’s performance can be compared with average national and state scores for specific quality measures.
How is the information gathered? Through health inspections. The data addresses staffing, how well the nursing home assists with helping residents dress and eat and how they help prevent and treat skin ulcers among other factors.
This new rating system is a great resource for anyone caring for an older family member. It will, no doubt, reduce neglect, potential abuse and keep facilities on their toes. Hopefully, it will also help influence future elder abuse law in New York City and all over the country.
Nursing home and elder abuse law is one of our areas of expertise.
Filed under: Malpractice | Tags: alwsuit, attorney, attorneys, law, lawsuits, lawyer, lawyers, Legal, Malpractice, medical malpractice, suit
Are malpractice lawsuits the reason why malpractice insurance is so expensive? They are determined to find out in Utah, as a compromise medical malpractice bill passed in the Senate there a while back. All the stakeholders interested in the bill came to the table, discussed compromises, then created an amended, substitute bill. Trial lawyers, members of the medical community and others were all involved in the proposed legislation.
The bill includes a clause that nullifies the law four years from now. In essence, the bill would make it more difficult to win a medical malpractice lawsuit against an emergency room physician. The medical community agreed to not make medical malpractice lawsuits more difficult to win against any other type of physician beyond those in the emergency room. Many who opposed the original bill feared the new standards would be applied to all types of doctors.
“If there is a problem that’s been stated, evidence that we’ll see hopefully over the next four years is that medical malpractice insurance rates will plummet, and if they don’t over that four-year period, then this legislature will know that in fact, this doesn’t have anything to do at all with medical malpractice rates,” said Sen. McCoy.
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Filed under: General Law, Malpractice | Tags: health care, healthcare, law, Legal, medical malpractice
This is a question on many people’s minds, and there seems to be a lot of disagreement. The issue of medical malpractice lawsuits is a very sensitive one in the debate over rising health-care costs according to Politico.com. Senator Max Baucus wants to discuss malpractice suits in his health-reform plan.
In order to improve health care and reduce costs, The American Medical Association says tort-reform measures need to be considered. On the other side, The American Academy of Family Physicians understands the importance of coalitions. Tes Epperly, president said, “With Congress the way it is right now, liability reform could be a bit of a deal breaker if we got sidetracked into that. I would hate to put it in the package and have the whole thing break apart.”
Are doctors over-burdened by expensive malpractice insurance? Some say yes. Attorneys, of course, indicate that protecting patient’s rights is first and foremost and if it takes a lawsuit to do that, then so be it. Trial lawyers plan to distribute a 29-page research piece indicating that lawsuits aren’t causing the cost of care to rise.
President Obama seems open to some changes, but has a “wait and see” attitude. Insight into his opinion came in the New England Journal of Medicine a few years ago where he (along with Hillary Clinton) said, “Instead of focusing on the few areas of intense disagreement, such as the possibility of mandating caps on the financial damages awarded to patients, we believe that the discussion should center on a more fundamental issue: the need to improve patient safety.”
What do you think? Sound off…
Filed under: Malpractice
Nowhere does it seem that medical malpractice is more out of control than in New York State. In fact, there have been so many cases that the government decided to put a freeze on the rate of medical malpractice lawsuits.
Two groups have been severely impacted. Of course, insurance companies were affected due to settlement payouts. They, in turn, raised their rates to doctors and other medical professionals. The other group was doctors, who were forced to go under because of the high insurance payments. The government was right to issue the freeze. Time was needed to determine a solution to the ongoing problem of medical malpractice in New York. Are local doctors really this bad? Are their patient’s misrepresenting the truth? What’s really going on? Where is the truth? Time will tell.
The medical malpractice insurance freeze is scheduled to be lifted soon. Elected officials have a lot of work to do in figuring out a solution to this growing problem. Whatever happens, it’s clear that the quality of care that our medical professionals provide needs to be reviewed? If there is a problem, medical reform needs to take place.
Filed under: Legal, Malpractice | Tags: attorneys, health care, healthcare, law, lawyers, Malpractice, obama
Is medical malpractice the result? It appears that the influx of these types of cases over the past few years is resulting in many questions being asked.
Being responsible for someone’s health is a challenge for any doctor, even the most skilled. But, this is a key part of being a doctor. Most people think it’s a glamorous and high paying profession, but is this what a doctor thinks who is facing a multi-million dollar malpractice case? The stakes are high and they usually have serious consequences.
It’s absolutely true that trying to rush through procedures and not paying enough attention can be real problems for most doctors. It is, however, the doctor’s responsibility and if there was, in fact a problem, they need to be held accountable.
What most people don’t realize is that medical students and nurses can be sued as well. In a busy office, responsibilities are given to them because of our overburdened medical system.
These individuals are usually the only provider of medications or direct care. Giving the wrong heart medication, for example, could have disastrous results. If they don’t have medical malpractice insurance, they should probably consider getting some.
To know more about the services of our medical malpractice and personal injury lawyers, get in touch. We will help determine what your options may be.
There are some that believe that medical malpractice is in need of major reform. This may be true, but it’s important to note that many medical malpractice suits are justified. There are doctors, in every discipline of medicine, that make major mistakes and place the lives of the people they are supposed to care for, in major jeopardy. Most of us know that the Obama administration is moving quickly to fix the country’s health care system. Apparently, they will be including the nation’s medical malpractice laws in with this legislation.
The legal community, attorneys and others, need to watch the developments closely. Protecting the legal rights of those that are represented in malpractice cases are the highest priority. As such, there may be a fight if these interests are violated through the reform process.
Linda Lipsen, senior vice president of the American Association for Justice told Politico.com that reform of medical malpractice is a short sighted attempt to cut health care costs.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with health care, if you were to throw the entire medical malpractice system out of the window, you would be taking out less than one percent of the cost of health care.”
Senate finance committee chairman Max Baucus has indicated that a “serious effort at comprehensive health care reform” would also tackle medical malpractice.
Whatever happens as this proposed legislation rolls out needs to be under close scrutiny by everyone in the legal community?
How do you feel about this?
In NYC medical malpractice , the term Ambulance Chaser, is one of the most commonly used stereotypes for personal injury and medical malpractice cases. Lawyers are not literally chasing ambulances! There are always going to be some lawyers that are not as ethical as others. However, I would say the majority of lawyers are working to protect people, granted these people are truly injured.
These injured people are not in the most comfortable position when they need to approach a lawyer. There are limitations and time constraints starting on the date of the malpractice, a lawyer should be contacted immediately. All information needs to be disclosed, good or bad for the case. People need malpractice lawyers; trial lawyers are the ones that come to their aid and help them.
The most important thing about trial lawyers are to fight for the people that can’t fight for themselves. And I think that’s what needs to be known. We are really there to protect people that have a hard time protecting themselves.
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