Missouri Nursing Home Laws

When you take the folks that have raised you and put them in a nursing home, you feel guilt. You feel more guilt if something bad happens to them while they’re there, and you want to hire a Missouri nursing home abuse lawyer for cases dealing with decubitus ulcers, unnecessary and unexplained falls, problems with nutrition and hydration. If your grandmother or father are not getting enough food and water, after a certain age, this causes all of their health to start to trickle and go downhill.

Hire a Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer

What could be a simple thing to fix if you hire a Missouri nursing home abuse lawyer early, can ultimately result in the untimely and early death of your loved one. One of the things that my firm has been active in for most of my time as a lawyer is in helping make sure that the legislators understand that the laws that they write affect folks for years in the future. If you don’t hire a Missouri nursing home abuse lawyer when something bad has happened to your loved one, you think, I don’t want to be the kind of person that sues. What you’re not thinking is by hiring the right lawyer, you may prevent this from happening to another family. When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office and if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case if we’re successful for you. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

Between school buses, public transportation and charter buses, we see buses on the road every day. And because there are more and more buses, there are more and more bus accidents. Although buses cost many times what an average passenger car does, they don’t often have the simple safety devices that we take for granted, when we buckle up to go to the grocery store. If you’re in a bus accident, whether it’s because a negligent driver struck your bus, or because your bus driver wasn’t paying attention and hurt you, it’s important to contact an attorney immediately. There are limits to insurance in all bus cases, and making sure that your claim is made is important. Call my office at the number on your screen, or visit us on the internet if you’ve been injured due to a bus accident. I am happy to visit with you, without any cost or obligation. Call 314-A-LAWYER today, for your free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

You’ve been hurt and you’re angry. You’re not the kind of person who sues, but you want to know what the stages of a lawsuit are. Let’s talk about it.   Injury Law News, brought to you by The S.E. Farris Law Firm.   I’m Spencer Farris, a personal injury lawyer in St. Louis, Missouri, and partner at The S.E Farris Law Firm. People get hurt and call my office every day, thinking that we can get their case resolved in a matter of hours like they do on TV. But there are a lot of stages to a personal injury case, and I want to go through those with you. Before you think about a lawsuit, you need to think about taking care of yourself. If you’re hurt, get medical treatment. Follow your doctor’s instructions, go to your doctor visits, and take your medication. That’s important for two reasons. First of all, you won’t get better if you don’t do those things, and feeling better’s the most important part of recovering from an injury. From a legal perspective, you can’t recover your damages if you don’t document that you have been injured, and the way that you do that is taking the time to follow your doctor’s directions. Get the medical care that you need.  Almost as important as hiring good doctors is to hire a qualified attorney, someone who’s experienced in handling injury cases and someone that you want to work with. Remember that an injury case can take months or even a couple of years to get resolved, and you want to find someone that you don’t mind having a partnership with that will last throughout that time period. Stay in touch with your lawyer. Make sure that if you move or change phone numbers or change doctors your lawyer knows about it. When your doctor’s done treating you, it’s time for your lawyer to get to work gathering the medical records and the facts necessary to present your case. Most lawyers will then put together what’s called a claim packet or a negotiation packet. By this time your lawyer should have contacted the person at fault for your injury and their insurance company. Now, your lawyer presents the case to the insurance company and starts negotiations. Remember that most cases settle at this stage – better than half, at least. If the insurance company is reasonable and your lawyer does his job to present your case, you should be able to get the case settled. It doesn’t always work that way however, and if it doesn’t, you move to the next stage which is an actual lawsuit. We’re going to talk about that in the next video. In the meantime, if you have questions about handling a personal injury case or the stages, please feel free to call or contact my office at the website and the phone number at the bottom of the screen. We’re happy to visit with you at no cost or obligation and talk with you about your case, whether we represent you or not. The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

Products liability is the part of the law that deals with defective or dangerous products. As a Missouri products liability attorney, I’ve been involved in cases where a product was misused and the manufacturer knew that it would be misused in that manner. The one that comes to mind was a baby seat case where a grandpa had strapped a baby into the car, didn’t get the seatbelt routed right, and there was a crash and the baby had a horrible, horrible brain injury because of that. We were able to hold the car seat manufacturer accountable because they knew that folks misused the product in this way and they didn’t design around it.

 It’s coming to light now that General Motors did exactly what Ford did back in the 70s and choose dollars over human lives with their Chevy Cobalt. As a Missouri product liability attorney, we understand that it takes a lot of work from the legal aspect from getting engineers involved and kind of doing reverse forensic sciences to figure out what was wrong with the product. Although, in the GM case, frankly they knew what was wrong and they made a decision to choose dollars over human lives. It’ll take a lot of attorneys to hold them accountable for what they did and for all the lives that they destroyed. There was a problem with the ignition switch that caused the airbag to fail. The airbag that’s designed to protect folks was failing and the cost of the part to fix it was under $1. GM’s first choice was to tell folks don’t hang heavy keys on your keychain. That will keep this from malfunctioning. They’d known for years before they finally did a recall, but they decided that the lives that they would have to pay for cost less than the cars they would have to fix. When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office and if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case if we’re successful for you.  Call 314-A-LAWYER today for a free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

You’ve been hurt, and you’re thinking that maybe you can handle your case without a personal injury attorney. Let me tell you some things you should look out for. Injury Law News, brought to you by the S.E. Farris Law Firm. I’m Spencer Farris-a partner at the S.E. Farris Law Firm. Folks call me all the time and wonder if they even need to have a personal injury attorney represent them in their claim. Maybe not. And I tell folks daily how to handle their own cases. But there are some things you need to be aware of. First and most important is the Statute of Limitations. Every case has a time limit, and it must be filed within the time limit or you forever lost your case. The law changes, and the law of medical bills and damages has changed in the last several years. You need to know what that is in order to present your case to a jury. Your health insurance is going to want to be reimbursed for the medical bills that they’ve paid for on your behalf. They may not be entitled to reimbursement. Whether or not they are is a question that you need to find the answer to. The insurance company has professionals looking out to investigate your case and try to find a way to pay you as little money as possible. Some folks are able to deal with the insurance company and able to handle their own cases. Most are not. In fact, studies show that people with an attorney get four to five times more money on their injury case than those without. You may have questions about handling your own personal injury case. Call my office and I’m happy to visit with you without cost or obligation. I tell folks everyday that they don’t need an attorney to handle their case, and point them in the right direction, and I’m happy to do that for you. Thank you for watching. The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

If you’re a victim of a hit and run in Missouri, your Uninsured Motorist Coverage will protect you. And an Missouri auto accident attorney is who you need to hire to make sure that you collect from the insurance company, and take care of all of your loses. We’ve had multiple cases over the years where someone caused a wreck and fled the scene. Maybe they cut-in in traffic or stopped suddenly and caused a crash and then fled the scene. And as a Missouri auto accident attorney I know how to use the law and recover my client’s Uninsured Motorist Coverage.

If I do my own plumping at home and messed it up, I can call a professional plumber. He’ll come in, he may laugh at me, it may charge more but he can fix it. But if you have a legal case and you don’t have an experienced Missouri auto accident attorney, you can never get over that. You can never fix that problem. You get one shot, to collect all of your damages and one shot to do it right. Well I don’t do wills, I don’t do trusts, I don’t handle divorces. Because the law is very broad. Think of it like you would think of a doctor. You wouldn’t go to your dermatologist if you had a brain tumor. You want someone who works in the same area everyday. And we practice Missouri auto accident law everyday. It’s what I’ve been doing for 22 years, I’m board certified, and focus my practice on injury victims and their family’s. When you’ve been hurt and the bills are racking up, you don’t have to pay a lawyer out of pocket to represent you in your injury case. Call my office. And if we can help you, we won’t charge you anything until the end of your case if we’re successful for you.  Call 314-AL-AWYER today for free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris

MMI or Maximum Medical Improvement, is the term that the insurance company’s doctor uses when he or she believes that medicine will no longer make you any better, and you’re as good as you’re going to get from the treatment you’ve gotten after your work-related injury.

By: Spencer Farris

I got a call from a lady the other day who wanted to know how her medical bills were going to be paid after her injury.

Injury Law News brought to you by the S.E. Farris Law Firm.

I’m Spencer Farris and I represent injury victims in the state of Missouri. I get that kind of call a lot from folks who are worried about their rising medical bills and the daily mail that they get with another bill collector looking for payment. And this is what I typically tell them.

Medicare

Senior citizens and folks on social security disability are covered by Medicare and Medicare will pay the medical bills as they are incurred. However, Medicare gets part of their money back from your injury case at the end. Your lawyer will have to negotiate that for you because Medicare will want dollar for dollar on what they spend.

Medicaid

Children in Missouri who don’t have private health insurance, and some adults, are covered by Missouri Medicaid. And Medicaid also will pay Medical bills and, at the end of your lawsuit, they will expect to be repaid. However, a judge can reduce or totally eliminate your payback to Medicaid. You’ll need your lawyer to help you with that.

Private Insurance

The other group that frequently pays medical bills in Missouri is private insurance and private insurance will ask for repayment almost always. Unless they are a special plan, a self-funded union plan or something along those lines that is governed by federal law, they’re not entitled to reimbursement. The word that they will say is subrogation, which means they stand in your shoes and get to collect their money back from the person who hurt you. Make sure that your lawyer is well aware and willing to fight for you so that you don’t have to pay back the health insurance. And this isn’t cheating. You paid benefits to get the health insurance. You wrote a check every month. They shouldn’t get their money back just because they did what they promised to do.

No Insurance

Finally, there are a lot of folks that don’t have any health insurance. And in those situations, hospitals and doctors will treat you on what’s called a lien basis. Hospitals don’t have to see you unless you’re in an emergency. But, experienced trial lawyers can help you find a doctor who will treat you on a lien basis and will make sure that your doctor understands that they will get paid.

When you’ve been hurt, the most important thing is to feel better and not be worried about how you’re going to pay for your medical bills. Remember that a trial lawyer who cares about his clients will fight for you and fight to put money in your pocket, rather than spend it all on the health care that you wouldn’t have needed but for your injury. If you have questions about medical care or how to pay for it after an injury, call my office or reach us at the website at the bottom of the screen. I’m happy to visit with you without any cost or obligation and hopefully help put your mind at rest.

The S.E. Farris Law Firm is dedicated to the needs of injury victims and their families.

By: Spencer Farris

They call them man’s best friend, but sometimes dogs cause more harm than good. If you or a loved one has been bitten by a dog, there are a couple things that you need to do immediately to protect your rights. One is to contact the authorities, police department or animal control, and fill out a report. Another thing which is very important is to find out and identify the owner of the dog. It doesn’t do any good to call an attorney, it doesn’t do any good to call the police if you don’t know who owns the dog that bit you. If you or a loved one have been bitten by a dog, contact us, call us on the number on your screen, or visit us through the Internet. I’m happy to answer your questions without any cost or obligation. Call 314-A-LAWYER today for your free consultation.

By: Spencer Farris