With the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age, nursing homes have become over crowded, leading to an excess in nursing home negligence. Most nursing homes are for-profit institutions, so to maximize profits they are cutting back on staff or hiring under-qualified employees at lower salaries. This, in turn, leads to fewer employees to patients, or patients receiving inadequate health care. Both of these problems foster nursing home negligence.

You never think nursing home negligence can happen to you or one of your loved ones, but the reality is that it happens every day. Everyone would like to have their elderly loved ones live with them, but it just isn’t practical. So, you send your family member to a nursing home; in most cases spend well over $5,000 a month, expecting them to receive the highest standard of health care. When negligence occurs, it is understandable to be upset.

In the United States, 30 percent of nursing home facilities are cited for abuse. The scary fact is that these are only the reported abuse cases. Most abuse goes unknown and unreported. Some of the more common nursing home lawsuits are:

• Abuse or assault
• Dehydration or malnutrition
• Bed sores
• Restraint or strangulation injuries
• Wandering and leaving the facility
• Prescription errors
• Medical mistakes
• Falls or fractures
• Misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose

If negligence happens to one of your family members or friends, it is pertinent that it be reported immediately to preserve evidence and prevent future abuse. The primary objective in a negligence case is to maximize the victim’s recovery and prevent future nursing home abuse.

Retaining an attorney will ensure that your rights and claims will be protected. The lawyers at the McMinn Law Firm are experienced in handling nursing home negligence cases and will protect the rights of your elderly family members.

Many patients who use cold therapy devices have been known to experience skin damage, nerve damage, and extreme pain that can be permanent. Doctors prescribe these cold therapy devices to their patients after surgery and joint injuries to relieve pain and swelling. Some of the more common practices of cold therapy can be found in baby teething tools, ice bags to treat sore muscles, or in cold compresses administered to fever sufferers.

The devices work by filling a cooler-like pouch with ice water then placing the cooling pad on the affected body part. There is a circulating pump inside the device that repeatedly circulates the ice water which cools the pad through connecting tubes and keeps the pad cold for extended periods of time.

Injuries from using these devices occur because most of the machines come with little to no instructions about temperatures or length of treatment time. If a patient leaves the machine on the affected area for too long, that area will become too cold and will slowly be desensitized. This in turn can lead to problems equal to frostbite. Frostbite sets in when the device causes the area to freeze, decreasing blood flow and heat delivery to the tissues resulting in ice formation. Depending on the length of cold exposure injuries can spread to the skin and underlying tissues, even to the nerves and bones.

Injuries from the use of cold therapy devices fall into two categories: nerve damage or nerve and skin damage. These damages don’t only result from using the devices at below freezing temperatures or for long periods of time. In fact, many injuries occurred in the 45-55 degree range for relatively small time periods, as apparent in the following case.

A 20-year old football player applied ice to his shoulder for 45 minutes due to soreness. This caused the athlete’s lower arm and hand to drop resulting in sensory changes in his wrist and fingers. Because of this his athletic career was put on hold until his nerve functioned properly returned a year later. If you are going to treat an injury with ice or a cold therapy device make sure the patient has a low percentage of body fat and that the area to which the cold is going to be applied is well protected with subcutaneous tissue.

All practicing personal injury lawyers in Texas must be familiar with Hospital Liens and their implications. The Texas legislature enacted the Hospital Lien Statute to provide hospitals with a separate cause of action to satisfy their liens and thus relieve the hospital from worrying about reimbursement for their cost of treating those who have suffered personal injury accidents. The statute is found in Chapter 55 of the Texas Property Code and it says that a lien attaches to cause of action, settlement, or judgment received by a victim of an accident so long as the victim was admitted within 72 hours on the injury. In order for the lien to attach, the hospital has to file the lien with the county clerk in the county where the accident occurred and must do so before any money has been paid to the victim.

This statute is very important for personal injury attorneys. If the hospital has filed a proper lien, you have constructive notice of the lien and will be required to resolve it before you distribute any proceeds. The most frequent scenario this comes up in my practice is with my car accident cases. In the typical personal injury car accident case, the victim will go to the hospital immediately following a serious collision. If your client did not carry health insurance, then their hospital bills will remain unpaid and most hospitals will file a hospital lien with the county clerk within 30 to 60 days after the date of accident. In a situation where the hospital lien has been filed, I must resolve the outstanding balance before I can distribute any proceeds to my client. If I fail to settle up my client’s hospital bill and distribute the proceeds to my client, the hospital can sue me directly to collect the outstanding balance.

If there is no hospital lien on file and I have received a settlement check, as soon as I distribute the proceeds to my client, I no longer have any liability for my client’s outstanding hospital bill. It has been my experience that most people prefer to have me settle up and negotiate down their outstanding hospital bills. In cases where there has been no hospital lien filed, I feel like I have a better bargaining position and the hospitals typically give larger reductions.

Finally, Hospital Liens do not attach to any uninsured motorist coverage your client may have carried. For instance, say your client was injured in a car accident and went to the hospital. They accumulated a hospital bill of $35,000. The at-fault driver only carried a minimum Texas policy at $25,000. Your client also carried an uninsured policy of $100,000. If the hospital filed a lien, it would only attach to the minimum policy of the at-fault driver and not to your client’s UIM coverage of $100,000.