Maryland Injury and Disability Law : Washington DC Metro Injury & Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Greenberg & Bederman : Accidents, Falls, Medical Malpractice : Maryland, DC, Virginia

Wrongful Birth

What if you went to the doctor and he didn’t give you all the facts? What if that lack of information resulted in you having to face a situation that affects you for the rest of your life?

This is the center of the argument in a so-called “wrongful birth” case, despite what others might say.

For those of you who are unaware of the circumstances that make up one of these cases, it involves a mother who has not been properly informed of a genetic deficiency or other detectable physical condition that exists in the fetus. When the fetus comes to term and is born, the genetic condition manifests itself into a severe handicap, which the mother was neither mentally nor financially prepared for because she was not properly informed.

A case like this is obviously a hot button issue, mainly because it spills over to the question of abortion, which is an ideological minefield on the best of days. But we have to look at this as an issue of the competence of the doctor rather than anything else, no matter what our feelings are on the moral end of reproductive issues.

The strides that medicine has made in terms of childbirth over the last century have been enormous. If you need concrete proof of that, you only need to visit an old cemetery, where if you examine a family plot you will see that as little as 150 years ago, many families had more dead children than live ones.

Nowadays childbirth is a much safer process, and thanks to advancements in testing we can tell if there are going to be any abnormalities in the child before it is even born. Through examining a sample of the amniotic fluid in the placenta (which is a process called amniocentesis,) doctors can easily determine whether or not the fetus is developing normally. And amniocentesis is only one of the tests.

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DC Social Security Hearing Office Computer System Shut Down

The DC Social Security hearing office came to a grinding halt on Wednesday and, sad to say, it is still not up and running. Yes, it’s true. The computer system at the DC hearing office (ODAR) is down and almost nothing is getting done. Without the computer they cannot check the status of cases, they can’t look at the electronic files, they simply can’t do anything that requires using the computer system. On a practical basis this means that the hearing office is almost completely shut down.

This is really unacceptable. And it’s yet another roadblock in the path of clearing out the backlog of cases. This makes me long for the days of doing everything by hand.
 

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Placing your loved ones in a nursing home or eldercare facility can be an incredibly difficult decision for anyone to make. Nobody relishes the idea of surrendering the care of your parents or grandparents to a third party, but there aren’t many people who can handle the normal stresses of everyday life as well as the care that an elderly or ill relative might need. The decision to place someone in a nursing home is often one that is made reluctantly.

But the unfortunate truth about nursing homes is that while the majority of them are well run and staffed with conscientious and dedicated professionals, there are still a number of them that are overcrowded and understaffed, and much of the staff that is working has little or no background in eldercare, or even medicine.

The end result of a state of affairs like this could be eldercare abuse.

Quite often, disturbing cases come to light. You read about patients in these facilities being beaten or even sexually abused. Or you read about patients dying of malnutrition or dehydration due to shameful neglect. These are not rare occurrences, and in fact they happen with shocking regularity.

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  Medical Malpraqctice Expert Witness Maryland

An attorney could have every word of the law books memorized, a high percentage of won cases and favorable settlements, and a thriving practice and satisfied client base, but what the vast majority of lawyers don’t have is a medical degree. So how does alawyer, with no background in medicine, successfully try a medical malpractice case? How can a lawyer who never spent a day in medical school cross-examine a doctor or surgeon who did pre-med in college, then medical school, then between three to eight years of residency depending on the medical specialty, and then any number of years in practice?

The answer is that the attorney talks to someone else who did pre-med in college, then medical school, then between three to eight years of residency depending on the specialty, and then any number of years in practice. In other words, the attorney gets his own doctor as an expert medical witness.

But not just any doctor will do. The attorney has to find someone with impeccable credentials in medicine and a specialty in the area in which the doctor named in the law suit has made the medical error. In other words, if the malpractice law suit is about a medical surgical error, it would do no good at all to consult a psychiatrist or an oncologist. This isn’t just smart legal practice, but is also a part of Maryland law.

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Does anyone, besides me, remember the old tv show, “Let’s Make a Deal”? For those of you too young to have watched this classic game show, it involved contestants being offered prizes for answering a question or guessing the actual price of some common product. The twist was that the contestant could then trade in his/her prize for an unknown object hidden behind a giant gift box or curtain. The unknown prize could be a new car, or a major appliance, or perhaps, an all expenses paid trip to an exotic location, or it could be a baby goat or a rusted out clunker of a car. The interesting thing about the show was whether the person would be enticed to risk the prize in hand in the hopes of getting something much better.

What does this have to do with social security law? More than you would guess. This is precisely the situation you can be placed in when the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) asks if you are willing to amend your onset date. Amending your onset date can amend the amount of your back benefits due to you. Changing the date means you can get less in back benefits that are actually due to you. Here’s how the situation typically goes down: The ALJ will indicate that he/she is willing to find that you are disabled, but your disabled period of time is actually found to be at a later date than alleged. This situation arises for various reasons. Perhaps the claimant turned 50 or 55 years of age; milestone birthdays in social security law. (See previous blog for further explanation) Or, maybe the judge believes that the evidence doesn’t support finding a disability until a later date. In any event, sometimes the ALJ will make an offer to find a claimant disabled, but the back benefits due to you will be calculated from a later date. When this happens, you have to decide whether the take the offer. If you refuse the judge’s offer, then a full hearing will take place and the judge will enter a decision. In the best case scenario, the ALJ will find that the claimant was disabled as of the alleged onset date. Other possibilities include the ALJ sticking to the offer or finding the person disabled at a different date, either before or after the offered date. But, there is the danger that the ALJ will find the person not disabled at all. Questioning the date allows the judge to review the file over in its entirety and make a ruling on the case, that has the “chance” of you being found not to be disabled at all. Questioning the onset date can be a real danger. So, is a “bird in the hand better than two birds in the bush?” The danger has to be weighed and assessed in each case.

The hearing is not a game show. It’s your life.
To learn more about Social Security Disability Issues, please read our Social Security Disability FAQ page.  To learn more about our Social Security Disability Lawyers, please read about Dory Sutker, or Suja Varghese.
 

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Medical Malpractice – Informed Consent

There isn’t one reputable mechanic in the world that would just go ahead and make a bunch of unasked for repairs to your car without telling you that they were needed in the first place. How would you like it if you brought your car in for an oil change only to be told that they replaced the whole fueling system without asking you? Or how would you like it if the mechanic told you that he was in the middle of making repairs that you didn’t ask for and accidentally caused more damage? The easy answer is that you wouldn’t like it at all.

Although the stakes are much higher than they would be with your car, these same principles are behind Maryland’s laws regarding what is called “informed consent” between you and your doctor or surgeon. What this means is that if you are going to have any medical or surgical procedure, no matter how major or minor, the medical professionals in charge of your care need to tell you everything about your medical procedure, and they need to have your permission before they can carry on.  

There are exceptions to this, of course. For instance, if you get into a car accident and surgery is necessary to save your life, the medical staff involved can rightfully assume that permission is given. But if the surgery is elective, or something that is planned in advance, it is the duty of the medical staff to tell you everything that they can.

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Social Security - INCREASE IN INITIAL APPROVALS

Lately, I have received more than the usual paltry amount of quick approvals at the lower levels and wondered why. I found my answer in a January 29, 2009 press release issued by SSA and informing us that SSA’s computer modeling program has increased the number of applicants receiving expedited approvals for social security disability benefits. Two processes are in place: the Quick Disability Determination (QDD) and Compassionate Allowances. According to SSA, the Administration is now expediting approximately 4% of all disability cases; an increase from the 2.7% of cases fast-tracked in 2007. This translates to an increase of 100,00-125,000 persons being approved in about 10 days instead of waiting three to four months or longer.

How do these programs work? Well, under QDD, a computer program analyzes certain data to identify cases where there is a high probability that the claimant is disabled and where SSA can quickly obtain evidence to document the allegations. Under the Compassionate Allowance program, SSA accelerates the processing of claims for claimant with medical conditions so severe that their conditions, by definition, meet SSA’s criteria for disability.

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