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Good Georgia business lawyers will tell you that starting a new physician practice in Georgia is like starting any other business, with some additional considerations.

The first step in starting any business is to develop a business plan and strategy. A physician practice’s business plan should involve details identifying a need in your community, anticipated payer mix, common codes with expected reimbursement, billing efficiency, anticipated growth, marketing strategy, referral strategy, and business development plans. Like any other business, you need to determine the need for your business in a community. You should do your research and planning before starting down any paths.

The next step is to incorporate the business. You need to decide between a corporation (whether a C-Corp, and S-Corp, or a Professional Corporation) and a limited liability company. The decision on which business entity to choose depends on multiple factors: general liability considerations, how many physicians will be part of the initial practice, how fast you wish to grow the practice, how much corporate maintenance you wish to do, and taxes. Ultimately, taxes and general liability are the top things to consider. Another step in the incorporation process is to obtain a tax payer ID number from the IRS.

Business accounts should be opened in the business’ name, and be kept separate from all personal accounts. Insurance should be obtained for the business. It is important to work with a competent local insurance broker or agent to meet your insurance liability needs. Consider, professional malpractice, general liability, disability, worker’s compensation, health insurance, and retirement plans.

It is also important for a new physician’s practice to start the credentialing and contracting process early. Government payors have long processing times. Get started on the Medicare/Medicaid paperwork at least four to six months before your expected opening date. You don’t want to open your practice and not be able to accept some patients because of credentialing or contracting delays. The credentialing process cannot be started without first setting up the corporate entity. You should also start the process of hiring non-physician staff, independent contractors, and administrative staff several months before your expected opening date.

Finally, it’s important to manage your practice like a business. Identify financial performance indicators, the red-flags that will alert you to trouble or give you assurance that everything is going according to plan. You should review your financial indicators and business plan on a monthly basis to ensure you are on track. You are running a business and a medical practice, so it is important to understand what your competencies are and hire experts where necessary.
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Contract Newer.jpgGeorgia Contract Lawyer discusses that In order to sue for a contract in Georgia, you need to have legal standing to sue. Another fancy word for this is called “privity.” The doctrine of privity of contract provides that only a party to a contract has standing to sue to enforce it, even if the contract confers benefits on others.

Simply put, that means you must have an actual vested, legal interest in the contract before you have a right to sue to enforce it. The same goes for someone who might be trying to sue you to enforce a contract. This means, if their names are not on the contract, then you better be sure that they actually have a vested legal right to sue you as a party to the contract .

O.C.G.A. §9-2-20 makes it very clear that “as a general rule, an action on a contract, whether the contract is expressed, implied, by parol, under seal, or of record, shall be brought in the name of the party in whom the legal interest in the contract is vested, and against the party who made it in person or by agent.”

For over 100 years, the Georgia Supreme Court has stated that the action on a contract must generally be brought in the name of the party in whom the legal interest in such a contract is vested. O’Leary v. Costello, 169 Ga. 754, 151 S.E. 487 (1930). Consequently, the proper parties are the parties who in regard to the subject matter of the contract, have given consideration or exchanged mutual promises of performance. American Fletcher Mtg. Co. v. First Am. Inv. Corp., 463 F. Supp. 186 (N.D. Ga. 1978).

In 2009, Judge Miller, Judge Barnes, and Judge Andrews of the Georgia Court of Appeals addressed this issue and ruled that:

” the trial court erred in granting an assignee summary judgment against a debtor to collect the amount owed on a credit card account agreement the debtor allegedly entered into with an assignor because the assignee failed to show that it was entitled to file suit to recover the outstanding debt against the debtor pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 9-11-17(a); the assignee relied on the affidavit of its agent and business records custodian of its credit card accounts to show that the assignor transferred to it all rights and interests to the debtor’s account, but the affidavit failed to refer to or attach any written agreements that could complete the chain of assignment from the assignor to the assignee, and although the assignee contended that the debtor did not raise its failure to present a valid assignment in the trial court, the record reflected that that issue was squarely before the trial court because the assignee directly addressed the debtor’s defense under § 9-11-17 in its motion for summary judgment, referring to the affidavit to show that it was the assignee. Wirth v. Cach, LLC, 300 Ga. App. 488, 685 S.E.2d 433 (2009).

This simply means that if a corporation or person is a party suing on a contract, but their names are not on the contract—they need to show evidence that the rights and interests were transferred to them, or “assigned”. If the evidence isn’t there, they likely have no legal standing to sue.

Therefore, if you are dealing with a contractual lawsuit, you need to be certain that both parties have the legal standing to sue. If you are currently faced with a business dispute or a breach of contract issue, a good Georgia lawyer can help you navigate these complex legal issues.
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Good Georgia personal injury lawyers are needed whenever you have complicated legal issues concerning automobile accidents and other vehicle crashes.

These legal issues are not always as straightforward as they may seem. For example, just last year, the Georgia courts faced a question as to what does the law say if the meaning of the term “accident” in an automobile liability insurance policy if it is not expressly defined, and how do you determine if there was one accident or two when an insured vehicle struck one claimant and then very shortly thereafter struck another?

In 2010, in the case of STATE AUTO PROPERTY AND CASUALTY COMPANY v. MATTY et al. 286 Ga. 611 (2010), the Georgia Supreme Court decided the answers to these questions.

Here, a vehicle driven by the insured struck a bicyclist, killing him, and then struck a second bicyclist, seriously injuring him. An accident reconstruction expert testified that, assuming the insured traveled at a constant speed of 55 miles per hour, it would have taken her just over a second to travel between the two bicyclists.

The insurance company argued that this incident constituted one accident and that under the policy, it was responsible for providing only a single $ 100,000 limit of coverage; the policy contained a liability limit for bodily injury of $ 100,000 for all damages resulting from any one auto accident, regardless of the number of insureds, claims, and vehicles in the policy declaration or involved in the accident.

In order to answer these questions, the Georgia Supreme Court adopted the cause theory for use in liability insurance cases in Georgia, whereby courts looked to whether, after the cause of an initial collision, a driver regained control of the vehicle before a subsequent collision, so that it could be said that there was a second intervening cause and therefore a second accident.

The outcome of the case is that the Court concluded that the meaning of the term “accident,” when not otherwise defined in setting limits of liability, should be determined using the cause theory. The court held that this theory applied to the insurance contract at issue in this case and returned the case to the district court with directions to resolve the case by applying the cause theory to the facts of the case.
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Georgia Personal Injury Lawyer and Auto Accident Attorney litigation involving the effectiveness of a notice of cancellation of a car insurance policy was addressed this past year by the Georgia Supreme Court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit certified the following question for the Georgia Supreme Court to answer: Was a notice of cancellation, properly given after a premium was past due, ineffective because it provided an opportunity for an insured to keep the policy in force by paying the past-due premium within the statutory 10 day period?

In the lawsuit, the insurance company contended that a policy was not in effect on the date of a collision due to a cancellation notice. The insurance company had sent out a notice entitled “CANCELLATION NOTICE, NONPAYMENT OF PREMIUM,” and the cancellation date was printed out in small boxes at the top and bottom of the paper. The paper also had “NONPAYMENT NOTIFICATION,” and “NON PAY NOTICE” stamped in large letters. The insurance company’s notice also contained payment options and a detachable payment stub.

The Georgia Supreme Court answered the certified question in the negative, noting that to be legally sufficient under O.C.G.A. §§ 33-24-45(c)(1) and 33-24-44, a cancellation notice had to positively and unequivocally state that the cancellation was occurring.
The mere fact that the notice contained an option for an insured to avoid the imminent cancellation did not change the clear statement that coverage was being terminated for nonpayment.

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Good Georgia Lawyer continues its multi-part series on SUV Rollovers:

The Auto Industry’s Refusal to Acknowledge The Need for Two Sided Rollover Testing was shown in the following:

The auto industry has consistently denied the need for an appropriate two sided test. The rollover tests selected by General Motors are “deliberately designed to avoid measuring roof crush. In one test, the vehicle is driven on a ramp, and then tips onto its side. This test can be used to evaluate the deployment of side curtain airbags, which General Motors has publicly announced it will be installing in all its vehicles by 2012, but fails to provide any information about roof crush.”

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Georgia Personal Injury Lawyers at Good Georgia Lawyer continue its multi-part series on SUV Rollovers:

Consumer Advocacy Recommendations as to how to solve the Rollover Problem and the Industry’s Response:

On June 4, 2008, former head of NHTSA and then President of Public Citizen Joan Claybrook testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She recommended that after twenty years of pushing for a response for NHTSA to address rollover fatalities, the agency do the following:

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Thumbnail image for doctorinhandcuffs.jpgWhat should you do when you learn secret information that your employer is stealing from, lying to, and cheating the federal or state government? This is a question that many prospective clients encounter on the job. The best answer when faced with this question is that you should immediately seek confidential legal counsel from a whistleblower lawyer because your employer’s illegal behavior may very likely constitute a violation of the False Claims Act.

Examples of the False Claims Act can include:

1. Medicaid or Medicare fraud: This is when doctors, hospitals, or pharmacies seek and receive reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid funds. Oftentimes they may be billing for services not rendered, or misrepresenting services or goods, or even providing defective goods or services.

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Thumbnail image for SUV.jpgGood Georgia Personal Injury Lawyers Series on SUV Rollovers Continue:

NHTSA first addressed the problem of rollovers with the dynamic dolly rollover test in 1970. It was a voluntary standard, not mandated, and the auto industry used this to test vehicles for decades. In 1971, NHTSA “proposed a roof crush protection rule that would test both front corners of the roof on passenger vehicles.” To summarize: both sides of a roof get crushed during the rollover: (1) the “near side” which is the term for the side of the roof which hits the ground first and (2) the “far side,” which is the side of the ground that hits the ground last. During a rollover, both sides will end up very differently. The most serious injury to vehicle occupants occurs if they are sitting on the “far side” of the vehicle that makes contact with the ground last during the rollover. Thus, if you are under that “far side” of the roof during a rollover, you would likely end up suffering fatal injuries compared to if you were sitting on the “near side.” Consequently, performing testing that only crushes one side of the roof–the “near side” that hits the ground first– completely masks the true devastating results of the roof crush during a rollover.

Shockingly, however, General Motors Corporation (GM) and the Automobile Manufacturers Association (which later became the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers) have consistently and illogically argued that testing both sides of the roof was unnecessary because: ‘in most cases roof structure damage is distributed to only one side of the roof in an actual rollover and that, because the roof is symmetrical it makes no difference which side of the roof is selected for testing.'” While it is true that roof crush damage is unevenly distributed to one side of the roof, it is the “far side” of the roof that receives the most damage that contains these car companies have not even been testing. It is the author’s opinion that car companies sought to suppress the true results of a full and complete rollover test for fear that it would impact their bottom line in profits. Consequently, these auto manufacturers successfully pressured and lobbied for a one side roof crush test requirement, which NHTSA ended up adopting and which remains in effect today.

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fat boy.jpgOur law firm helps protect the rights of those injured or harm due to a wrong or injustice. Just a few of the many cases we do involve children who are victims of bullying. We are pleased that our firm was invited to attend the special showing of The Fat Boy Chronicles.

This is a movie about an overweight young teenage boy who is bullied about his physical appearance. The bullying of his classmates make going to school a difficult experience. Yet the young man still manages to overcome his goals to lose weight and win over the girl of his dreams.

The movie is based on Lang Buchanan’s latest novel, The Fat Boy Chronicles, which tells the story of an obese 9th grader struggling to find his way in our thin-obsessed society.

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Thumbnail image for SUV.jpgGood Georgia Lawyer Continues its Series on SUV Rollover Deaths in Part Four:

The problem of rollover first made national news in 1980 when CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a report on the Jeep CJ, the model for many early SUVs. The report showed footage of an Insurance Institute of Highway Safety test in which the vehicle rolled over when conducting evasive maneuvers like a quick turn to avoid hitting something in the road. Despite the rollover risk, Americans flocked to the vehicle. Thus the auto industry began producing similar vehicles. Using the Jeep as a model, Ford introduced its first SUV, the Bronco II, which rolled out in March 1983 as an immediate hit. Throughout the 1980s, the company sold over 700,000 Bronco IIs — double their initial projections. Almost immediately, however, the Bronco II began to have rollover problems.

As deaths and horrific injuries mounted, Ford knew as early as 1981 that (1) its SUV’s were tipping onto two wheels at speeds as low as 20 miles per hour and that (2) it had considered shelving the Bronco II project during development. In the spring of 1982, Ford engineers recommended one important change: a 3 to 4 inch widening of the vehicle track, would produce a “major improvement” in “roll characteristics.” However, Ford ignored the safety and design recommendations of its own engineers and went into production after widening the SUV by just 4/10ths of an inch despite internal Ford cost projections that showed it would have cost just $83 per vehicle to widen the vehicle and lower the center of gravity to achieve a safe design. “Ford’s management — conscious of competition with GM’s Chevrolet Blazer” ignored their own engineers’ safety recommendations because it would have delayed “Job 1″ (the vehicle’s first date of production).” Thus, Ford “rushed to cash in on this rapidly expanding, high-profit market with little attention to the safety implications of their vehicle designs for SUV occupants and even less attention to the safety of motorists in other vehicles.”

However, Ford knew that problems would result from this decision. It would later be shown that in anticipation of rollover litigation, “realizing that the company’s own engineering documents showed that the Bronco II had a high propensity to roll over, injure and potentially kill a significant number of people who purchased it, Ford took the unprecedented step of gathering 113 specific documents critical to the defense in rollover litigation prior to the production of the first Bronco II.” Engineers were ordered to “sanitize” documents prior to collection: “over 50 of these documents disappeared, and none of these documents were disclosed to NHTSA during the 1988-1990 Bronco II investigation because Ford said it “didn’t notice” that the agency asked for these specific development documents.”

When litigation began to heat up, Ford paid a former company engineer, David Bickerstaff, $5,000,000 over eight years to lie in a series of 30 rollover cases. In June 1990, Bickerstaff sent Ford a letter in which he suggested $4,000 a day payment, to “assist you [Ford] in preparing me [Bickerstaff] to testify in Ford’s favor.” Before he was paid by Ford, Bickerstaff testified that as a Ford engineer, he was concerned about the Bronco II’s propensity to roll over. After being paid by Ford, Bickerstaff testified that while working for Ford, he was not concerned about the vehicle’s low stability index. Bickerstaff also helped Ford “rig a videotape designed to convince juries that the Bronco II was not likely to roll over, by loading a Bronco II with 900 lbs. of lead shot on the floorboards and seats in a manner that artificially lowered the center of gravity.”

Thus, in April 2001, a federal judge concluded that, as a matter of law, Ford and its witness Bickerstaff engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud. In 2001, a federal judge in Goff v. Ford concluded that Ford had engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud. In a 1999 decision, the Indiana Court of Appeals referred to Ford’s behavior in launching the “dangerous and defective” Bronco II as “highly reprehensible” and “the crassest form of corporate indifference to safety… of the consumer.”
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