Elder Law Commons^™

The Troubled State Of America's Nursing Homes, Albert Moran

Albert Moran

Even the most cursory search of news coverage involving nursing homes reveals that horror stories are not difficult to come by. Although the grisly details of each individual horror story vary, most of them share the same general story line—through some combination of gross negligence and profound systemic failure, elderly citizens can experience disturbing conditions in nursing homes that result in suffering and sometimes death. While egregious stories make local news headlines every so often and prompt a brief firestorm of public criticism, the everyday reality of nursing homes is much less sensationalized, and arguably even more sobering. Statistics indicate …

" 'How's My Doctoring? Patient Feedback's Role In Physician Assessment", Ann Marie Marciarille

Ann Marie Marciarille

A society-wide consumer revolution is underway with the rise of online user-generated review websites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and Zagat. Service provider reviews are now available with an intensity and scope that attracts increasing numbers of reviewers and readers. Health care providers are not exempt from this new consumer generated scrutiny though they have arrived relatively late to the party and as somewhat unwilling guests.

The thesis of this article is that online patient feedback on physicians is relevant and valuable even though it is also uncomfortable for health care providers. This is because the modern physician-patient relationship is …

Bending The Health Cost Curve: The Promise And Peril Of The Independent Payment Advisory Board, Ann Marie Marciarille, James Bradford Delong

Ann Marie Marciarille

Underlying today’s and the future’s health-care reform debate is a consensus that America’s health-care financing system is in a slow-moving but deep crisis: care appears substandard in comparison with other advanced industrial countries, and relative costs are exploding beyond all reasonable measures. The Obama Administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) attempts to grapple with both of these problems. One of ACA’s key instrumentalities is the Independent Payment Advisory Board—the IPAB, designed to discover and authorize ways to reduce the rate of growth of Medicare and other categories of health spending. The IPAB is a peril. Expert boards to …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Lawmaking By Public Welfare Professionals, Margaret F. Brinig

ExpressO

In an era of shrinking state and local resources for domestic violence prevention and detection, governments face a critical question of how to best allocate scarce funds. This paper suggests some answers for treating violence by caregivers and presents a model for evaluating other programs. To reach our conclusions, we analyzed data and survey results supplied by more than 1700 county-level adult protective services (APS) authorities.

We found that some expensive programs produce very few results in terms of reporting, investigating, and substantiating elder abuse. For example, requiring a specific education or experience level (and therefore guaranteeing higher salaries) or …