Blog
Blog
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.
If you work for a doctor’s office that mostly treats elderly patients, or if you provide home health services to seniors, then a large portion of your employer’s income comes from Medicare, a federally funded health insurance program for people aged 65 or older. Some patients become eligible for Medicare benefits before age 65 if they have qualifying chronic illnesses, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, or if their chronic kidney disease has advanced to a certain stage. Each year, the federal government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on Medicare, which is the main source of healthcare for approximately one-seventh of the U.S. population. When physicians and other healthcare providers defraud Medicare by knowingly entering false information on claims that they submit for payment, they not only cause financial harm to taxpayers but also take away resources from elderly people who rely on Medicare for medical treatment, nursing care, and medications they need to stay healthy. The law protects employees who report Medicare fraud from retaliation by their employers. If you have witnessed Medicare fraud or other misconduct in your workplace, contact a Dallas whistleblower claims lawyer . How Does Medicare Fraud Happen? Healthcare providers submit billing claims to Medicare, much as they would to privately owned insurance companies. As with private health insurance, the patient’s share of responsibility for the cost of treatment is pre-determined as a flat fee or a percentage of the sticker price of services offered, and Medicare pays the rest. Doctors’ offices, hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities that treat elderly patients receive a substantial portion of their income through claims paid by Medicare. Sometimes healthcare providers attempt to enrich themselves by making false statements on Medicare claims. These are some of the forms that Medicare fraud can take: Using a different billing code to make it look like you provided a more expensive service than you actually provided Billing for office visits, medical treatments, and lab tests that never occurred Ordering medically unnecessary lab tests and durable medical equipment Filing duplicate claims There have even been instances where a clinic or durable medical equipment company will pay kickbacks to a Medicare-authorized physician in exchange for using that physician’s provider number to file false claims with Medicare. Reporting Healthcare Fraud is a Protected Activity Under Employment Laws If you have witnessed your employer or your coworkers filing false Medicare claims at your workplace, you should report the incident, whether to Medicare itself or to law enforcement. Reporting misconduct at your workplace is a legally protected activity. Employment law defines protected activities as those which inconvenience your employer but do not constitute misconduct on the employee’s part. Therefore it is against the law for your employer to retaliate against you if you do them. Reporting violations of the law to the relevant regulatory body is a protected activity; this includes reporting Medicare fraud. It is also a protected activity to cooperate with a civil or criminal investigation into alleged breaches of the law at your workplace. Outside the context of Medicare fraud, other protected activities include requesting an unpaid family leave or medical leave under FMLA, requesting accommodations for a disability, filing a workers’ compensation claim about a work-related injury, reporting workplace safety violations to OSHA, and complaining about employment discrimination at your workplace to your employer’s human resources department or to the EEOC. Retaliation is when an employer takes an adverse action to punish you for engaging in the protected activity. Adverse actions can include excessive scrutiny of your work, unfairly negative performance reviews, changing your schedule or work duties when you did not request this, demotion, denial of promotions or raises, or termination of employment. If an employer says that you are losing your job because of corporate layoffs and offers you a separation agreement with a severance package, you should think twice before you sign it. By signing the separation agreement, you waive the right to sue your employer for wrongful termination of employment. You should not sign if you think that the corporate downsizing is just an excuse and your employer is really firing you in retaliation for reporting Medicare fraud, even if your employer has not told you directly that they know that you reported the fraud. How to File a Medicare Fraud Whistleblower Action If you have seen your employer file false claims with Medicaid, or if you have not witnessed it directly but have seen enough evidence of it to have a reasonable suspicion that it is going on, then you should contact a whistleblower cases lawyer immediately. If you are the first person to notify the government that your employer is defrauding Medicare, then you might be entitled to a relator’s award. A relator is just another way of saying a whistleblower, someone who notifies authorities about fraud or other types of financial misconduct at a company or institution. The relator’s award is often calculated as a percentage of the money that the court awards to the government after it sues the party that has been defrauding it. Therefore, if your employer has filed several millions of dollars worth of false claims with Medicare, then your relator’s award could be for a substantial amount of money. Of course, you are only eligible for a relator’s award if you have notified the government of an act of fraud that they did not already know about. Therefore, you should contact a lawyer now instead of later about your suspicions that Medicare fraud is happening at your workplace. If your employer has gotten so used to getting away with fraud that they are starting to be sloppy or greedy with their false claims, time is limited for you to speak up before Medicare decides to investigate even without your whistleblower claim. Contact Marchand Law, LLP About Medicare Fraud Lawsuits A whistleblower case attorney can help you report Medicare fraud at your workplace. Contact Marchand Law, LLP in Dallas, Texas, to discuss your case.
Even the most effective medications are only beneficial if you take them as indicated. Consider that much drug abuse involves drugs that have at least one legally accepted medical use; the only controlled substances that are never legal in a medical context are Schedule I controlled substances. What happens, though, if you had every reason to believe that you were taking your medication properly, but you suffered an adverse reaction because a doctor, nurse, or pharmacist gave you the wrong medication or the wrong dose? Medication errors are one of the most common types of medical errors. If you suffered a serious illness or injury because you received the wrong medication as part of your medical treatment, contact a Dallas medical malpractice lawyer . How Medication Errors Occur Doctors and healthcare facilities must follow strict regulations about the prescribing and administering of drugs. These are some situations where medication errors can occur: Doctors do not read a patient’s medical chart carefully enough before prescribing a drug to be taken on an outpatient basis or ordering its administration in a hospital setting. The doctor might not notice that the patient has a pre-existing condition for which the drug is contraindicated or prescribes the wrong dose for the patient’s weight. An emergency room doctor, who does not have access to the patient’s entire medical records, does not take a thorough enough medical history before making a decision about which drugs to prescribe in which doses. If the doctor had been more diligent in taking a medical history, the error could have been avoided. A pharmacist makes an error in filling a prescription because he or she did not read the prescription carefully enough or was distracted when filling it. A nurse in a hospital connects the wrong medication to a patient’s IV line. A nurse in a nursing home gives the wrong pills to a patient. Filing a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Related to a Medication Error If you suffered preventable harm because a doctor made a wrong decision about your medication, you have the right to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. The same legal principles govern medical malpractice lawsuits as those that govern other types of personal injury lawsuits. This means that when you file a medical malpractice lawsuit related to a medication error, you must prove the following things: The doctor had a duty of care. To prove this, you must prove that there was a doctor-patient relationship, even if it was in an emergency setting. The doctor breached the duty of care by making a medical error. To prove this, your lawyer must consult other doctors who have similar training and clinical experience to the one that treated you. They must explain what the doctor should have done in your situation and how the doctor’s actions deviate from the standard of care. You suffered harm as a direct result of the doctor’s actions. Since you were already sick when you first visited the doctor, the doctor might argue that the adverse reaction was a natural consequence of your illness, and it still would have happened if the doctor had acted differently. The testimony of expert witnesses can help you prove this claim. You suffered financial losses because of the preventable adverse event. Your past and future medical expenses related to the adverse event are the easiest to prove. If the adverse event rendered you temporarily or permanently unable to work, then your lost income is also a financial loss arising from the doctor’s negligence. Are Medication Errors a Sign of Nursing Home Neglect? Medication errors can happen anywhere that patients interact with healthcare providers, but one of the most common settings where they occur is in nursing homes. This is because, in a nursing home, one nurse is responsible for administering medicine to dozens of patients, and most of them take multiple pills or other oral medications several times per day. Every morning and afternoon, a nurse makes his or her rounds with a cart full of little cups of pills, with each cup full of the pills that each patient must take at that time of day. Because there are so many pills, there are more chances that a nurse will put the wrong pills in a cup or give the wrong cup to the wrong patient. One would be hard-pressed to find a nursing home that has a 100% accuracy rate when it comes to administering pills. Regulators do not get suspicious when there are a few errors every now and then. Just one error can cause a serious illness, though. If medication errors are one of many problems in the nursing home, you might have grounds for a nursing home neglect claim. Your lawyer will find out more about whether the nursing home has adequate staffing and whether it complies with regulations. What if the Problem is the Drug, Not the Healthcare Providers Who Provided it? In some cases, patients suffer adverse reactions even when doctors follow prescribing guidelines to the letter. It could be the case that the drug is more dangerous than doctors realize and should be subject to stricter regulations. If this describes your situation, you may have grounds to file a product liability lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company. Product liability lawsuits related to dangerous drugs have led to changes in regulations relating to drugs. For example, over-the-counter drugs that contain acetaminophen, such as Tylenol and Theraflu, now contain warning labels advising patients not to exceed the recommended dose, and some cold medications have stopped including acetaminophen as an ingredient. This is because it is possible to suffer severe liver damage by taking a dose that is only slightly higher than the recommended dose. Patients accidentally overdosed by taking combinations of over-the-counter medicines. Contact Marchand Law, LLP About Medical Malpractice Lawsuits A personal injury attorney can help you seek compensation if you suffered a preventable injury because of a medication error. Contact Marchand Law, LLP in Dallas, Texas, to discuss your case.
Address
8117 Preston Road,
Suite 300
Dallas, TX 75225
Phone
214-216-1464
Fax
972-441-2179
leanna@mrlaw.com
Disclaimer: This web site is a repository of publicly available information, and is not intended to form an attorney-client relationship with any individual. Because of the unique and specialized nature of the attorney-client relationship, and the breadth of the firm's practice and client base, no submission through this web site may be treated as confidential. An attorney-client relationship may be formed after appropriate consultation with an attorney, and the execution of a signed, written agreement for legal services. This web site is informational and is not a solicitation of employment in any particular case. This web site is not intended for use by any person whose legal matters do not arise in jurisdictions where firm attorneys are licensed to practice law. Pursuant to the rules of the State Bar of Texas, the attorney responsible for the content of this web site is David Marchand. Any links located on this web site are not intended as referrals for specific legal issues, but are provided soley for the convenience of the user. The firm makes no warranties regarding the accuracy or timeliness of information contained in any page linked to the firm's web site. Pursuant to federal law, nothing contained in this email transmission should be considered legal advice regarding a federal tax matter. Marchand Law, LLP dispenses legal advice on federal tax matters only through a qualified written tax opinion, after undertaking sufficient due diligence to render the opinion in accordance with relevant standards of professional conduct. Legal matters are factually specific, and expertise intensive, and therefore the general information contained in this website cannot constitute legal advice for any particular situation.
Principal Office: Dallas, Texas
Marchand Law, LLP
This website has been built to be accessible for all users. If you experience any difficulty in accessing this website, please contact us for assistance.
