In this article, entitled “Corporate asset protection: Shielding your practice from lawsuits, threats“, by David B. Mandell, JD, MBA, and Jason M. O’Dell, MS, CWM, the two write an entire article aimed to “protect a medical practice or healthcare business against lawsuits and potential creditor threats.”  This is the sick reality of hospital care, nursing home care, and assisted living care in the United States.  Accountability is not reality in the healthcare business.  No other profession that I know of can actually get away with writing and publishing articles on how to avoid paying for poor care.

The federal government publishes sites where you can compare nursing home neglect, compare hospital malpractice, and otherwise try to evaluate things, such as infection rates.

On the other hand, the health care industry tries to avoid actually having to pay “what a jury will award.”  These two guys note that juries routinely hand out awards in excess of the coverage limits of traditional malpractice, employee harassment and other common P&C insurances.”

They recommend things such as “multiple entities” (in which there are numerous corporations that don’t really do anything).  I have actually seen agreements where the game president of a long term care corporation signed a document for both entities, nothing more than a game.

In part II of the article, the authors go on to discus”techniques to shield the specific assets of the practice — from accounts receivable to equipment, intellectual property and real estate to cash flow.”