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Who We Are 
We are a medical-legal review and referral firm based in Los Angeles with experts and clients nationwide. We offer medical and biomedical experts in virtually all specialties and sub-specialties. We also can provide paramedical experts such as dentists, EMTs, podiatrists or registered nurses.

Our experts will serve as consultants and expert witnesses
for nearly every legal proceeding requiring medical or similar expertise. Our clients include attorneys, both plaintiff and defense, insurance companies and HMOs, government agencies and private individuals in every state and several foreign countries.

We specialize in referrals of experts in hard to find specialties or with highly specialized clinical or research experience. We represent panel experts that are contracted with us and independents who deal directly with our clients. For fees and referral policies, please click on the memorandum for
                                                                attorneys in the left sided panel.
  
        We also offer a preliminary review at a reduced price for those lawyers and individuals that are
        uncertain about the merits of their case. Medical reviewers are all board-certified and many experts do
        both expert consultation and medical review.

Contact Us

Contact us by telephone (local or toll-free), fax, e-mail or regular mail. We will respond quickly. We offer a free of charge discussion of your case and expert requirements with our executive director. He has been an expert witness for more than 25 years and is uniquely qualified to assist you in evaluating your case.

                                            MedicoLegal Consultants          Toll-Free: 1-888-661-3593
                                            11041 Santa Monica Blvd. #719          Tel: (310) 444-7960
                                            Los Angeles, CA 90025                         Fax: (310) 444-7912
                                                                     E-mail: experts@mlegal.com

      Medical-Legal News & Comment*
         
Important articles and reports affecting the medical-legal community and the public at large.

       Special Links
       
Professional Liability Risk
         
This compendium of the elements of medical malpractice and risk management is required reading
        for physicians and patients contemplating legal action.
       
        Watch Out for This Growing Malpractice Trend

          Legal advice on medical malpractice insurance in corporate or group practices.

        June
        
Cardiologist Gets 10 Years for Performing Unnecessary Interventions
         
Medscape Internal Medicine (Heartwire) 06/26/09
          A Louisiana cardiologist has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for healthcare fraud. Dr. Mehmood
        Patel, formerly of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and Lafayette General Hospital in Louisiana, was
        convicted on 51 counts of billing private and government health insurers for unnecessary medical
        procedures and received the maximum sentence. At an 11 week trial evidence was brought out that
        Patel did numerous tests and procedures on patients with little disease and falsified their symptoms
        in the medical record.

       
FTC Chairman Pushes Antitrust Legislation Against Pharmaceutical 'Pay-for-Delay Payments'
         
The National Law Journal 06/24/09
          The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz, is trying to eliminate the so-called
        'pay for delay' payments that drug companies offer to generic drug manufacturers to keep their
        equivalent (and cheaper) drugs off the market. Despite such payments, there is often a huge
        financial incentive for the original manufacturer to avoid generic competition, even for a few months
        to a year. Leibowitz called the practice anti-competitive and is urging Congress to ban it.

        

         
Medical Liability Reform as a Part of Pending Healthcare Legislation?

      
Despite opposition from members of his own party, President Obama makes a case for medical
        liability reform as a part of the healthcare package now being crafted by Congress: Obama Open to
        Reining in Medical Suits, The New York Times 06/15/09.
The pros and cons of making this a part
        of the federal healthcare plan are debated in this article: The Role of Medical Liability Reform in
        Federal Healthcare Reform, The New England Journal of Medicine 06/15/09.

 
       
        Oklahoma Enacts Comprehensive Tort Reform
      
   American Medical News 06/08/09
      
The governor of Oklahoma has signed a new tort reform bill offering physicians protection in many 
        malpractice lawsuits. The law requires an expert opinion, or certificate of merit, with the filing of a 
        liability case. The requirement would be waived for indigent plaintiffs who cannot afford an expert.
        It also helps ensure that defendants are held responsible for only their share of fault and strengthens
        the definition of frivolous lawsuits.

         Medical Board Drops Complaint Against Transplant Doctor
         
The Los Angeles Times 06/04/09
         Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, accused of trying to hasten the death of a comatose patient, was acquitted
        by a jury in December. Information that emerged in that trial prompted the board to drop the
        complaint. The doctor, a transplant surgeon, was accused of attempting to hasten the death of a
        potential organ donor so that his organs could be harvested within the time frame of viability. The
        hospital staff where the donor was a patient had no previous experience with organ donation and,
        according to the doctor's defense, had to be directed by him to avoid chaos.        
   

        *See Medicolegal News for additional links.
   

  This quarter our book review is of Understanding Patient Safety by Dr. Robert Wachter, Associate Chairman of the Department of Medicine at UCSF and author of Internal Bleeding. This book is devoted to
examples of how things go wrong in hospitals and why our current measures for insuring patient safety are inadequate. Drugs,
  surgery, medical devices and most of all, human error contribute to the enormous
  risks a patient faces when receiving medical care in a modern hospital. Dr. Wachter
  devotes several chapters to alert patients to potential mistakes and how to fix things.
       
         For a list of all our book reviews dating back to 2003, see Book Reviews

 

                                  
        
Next Month
        
More articles, book reviews and news and comment from the medical-legal world. Don't
         forget our experts!
     

        
                       
Copyright © 2009 by MedicoLegal Consultants. All rights reserved. This page updated July 1, 2009.