David S. Barmak Law Blog

Issues in the Legal Representation of Adults Using

Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems

According to Wellmark, a division of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, “…augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems are also known as speech generating devices. These are prescribed for patients who... Read More

The Challenges of Delivering Legal Services to the Deaf or Hard of Hearing

 “The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires attorneys to provide equal access to their services by providing accommodations necessary to ensure effective communication with individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.  These accommodations include qualified interpreters and assistive listening devices”. (National Association of the Deaf, 2010) The Association further... Read More

Corporate Compliance Issues of Virtual Global Offices in Health Care

The use of technology to create a virtual business world in the health care industry must maintain the standards of practice as if the virtual meeting places were occurring in a brick and mortar site. The information derived from a virtual work space, communications, databases, and other business-related publications, must... Read More

Negligence, Abuse or Fraud in Medical Coding

Often times, the discussion of negligent, abusive and/or fraudulent reimbursement practices focuses on what the payer has been charged. Of equal importance, and requiring the same level of professional due diligence, is... Read More

An aged woman resided in our client’s nursing home. The care our client provided was excellent.  Unfortunately, the care provided by the former owner was horrendous. She developed a urinary tract infection and was transferred to the local hospital. Sadly she died from sepsis as a result of complications in the hospital. She had survived the pain and anxiety of substandard care to make it into the comfort of quality care only to succumb to a UTI and the... Read More

Crowdsourcing in Health Care: Considerations in the Corporate Compliance Program

Outsourcing, or the use of an outside service to replace work previously done within the organization, is a concept that is relatively familiar in the health care industry. An additional way to attract experts and effect collaboration is crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing, according to Jeff Howe, who was one of the first... Read More

      We defended a nursing home against a lawsuit where our client provided great care and adequate documentation but still settled for a lot of money because hospice did not do documentation properly.

       A woman in her 50’s was admitted to nursing home client with severely compromised circulation. Within a few months everyone except the resident herself, acknowledged that her... Read More

With the ambiguity of standard non-compete clauses continuing to loom, many corporations are utilizing a practice which has been in place in the United Kingdom for many years, garden leaves.  A garden leave is the time period between the employee’s removal from his/her position and when s/he is no longer on the payroll.  The agreement warrants that during this timeframe, the employee will continue to receive his/her remuneration to assure that s/he does not engage in... Read More

Protecting your company from  being exposed to surprising liabilities from click wrap (click-through) contracts, such as accepting the terms of use of another website via your company e-mail is possible. This article outlines 6 steps that should be taken as part of a corporate compliance and risk managment program for a health care organization to prevent potential liability from such click wrap contracts.... Read More

I have often been asked by female skilled nursing home administrators to try to explain why many of their male employees continue to act in ways which are demeaning and disrespectful to female employees knowing well that their behavior is unlawful and puts them at risk of losing their job.

Many men in our society still think it is socially acceptable for men to whistle at females, especially if their male friends are watching and condoning their behavior.

How many female nurses... Read More