Why use Ptarmigan Legal Nurse Consultants?
We provide honest answers and expert support during the
most complicated times, including those who need assistance
with the medical aspects of:
-
Medical malpractice*
-
Personal injury*
-
Long-term care litigation/elder law
-
Product liability
-
Workers’ compensation
-
Risk management
-
Life-care planning
-
Regulatory compliance
-
Forensic/criminal*
-
Civil rights
-
Employment discrimination
-
Medicare set-asides
*Services for persons outside of Colorado
General Public: Looking for help with Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID)?
If you need someone to talk to who will not judge or sugarcoat the topic of dying, we are here for you. For those looking for information about MAID but are afraid to ask, Ptarmigan Legal Nurses can explain everything. We will make sure that:
-
If you are feeling overwhelmed by all the steps involved, or if your family and friends are not on board with your decision, you will be supported through the process.
-
Support is there for you and your family during the entire process, from start to finish – including accompanying you to your appointments and being present on that last day.
Medical Providers, Estate Planners, and Elder Law Attorneys: Need assistance with talking to your clients, and their families, about death and dying?
Talking to your clients about death, dying, palliative care, hospice care, and the medical component of a living will is not easy. Only 13% of med schools, in the US, currently have any kind of curriculum that talks about this.
-
Nobody WANTS to talk about death; in our society death is a negative experience
-
There is such a thing as a good death; we will guide your clients through the planning process in a way that honors their wishes, accounts for minimal strife, and protects them from those who would go against their wishes.
Medical Durable Power of Attorney (MDPOA) all fall under our areas of expertise
-
We can train you and your staff in how to talk to your clients about the medical aspects of MDPOAs before it becomes a crisis.
-
If you need assistance with introducing these topics when meeting with your clients, Ptarmigan Legal Nurses can initiate these conversations, follow up with each client, and ensure that you are kept in the loop.
Attorneys: Is there a case?* *For cases outside of the State of Colorado
Let Ptarmigan Legal Nurse Consultants handle the hundreds of pages of medical records you have to read and create a summary and chronology of the events. We can also:
-
Review the records, figure out what really happened, and examine whether or not there is a case.
-
We will find, vet, and provide all the necessary medical experts.
-
Allow us to explain these difficult situations to medically/emotionally unstable or overwhelmed clients and provide expert witnesses specific to your case.
-
If you don’t have the time to accompany clients to independent medical exams, Ptarmigan Legal Nurses can do it for you. We will take notes and videotape/summarize those exams.
-
Allow us to guide clients through each step of the legal process.
Legal, Medical Experts
Legal nurse consultants are members of a specialty in which nurses provide invaluable consultation and expertise to attorneys about medical issues. With strong roots in clinical nursing practice, Ptarmigan Legal Nurse Consultants apply the nursing process to evaluating relevant, complex information in legal cases. Additionally, Ptarmigan Legal Nurse Consultants:
-
Review and analyze medical records
-
Conduct client interviews
-
Conduct medical literature review
-
Identify medical professional standards of practice
-
Identify and secure expert witnesses
-
Translate healthcare language for attorneys and other legal staff
-
Educate attorneys about medical issues
-
Provide testimony in court as an expert witness
-
Prepare for depositions and trials
-
Produce exhibits for trials and depositions
-
Serve as a jury consultant for the legal team
Please be aware, our team members do not practice law and are not paralegals. We actually fulfill a unique role in bridging the gap between the legal process, healthcare science, and patient outcomes. Legal nurse consultants work in many settings, including independent consulting practices, insurance companies, and legal firms, to name a few.
Preparing for Last Days
The primary role of a legal nurse consultant (LNC) is to evaluate, analyze, and render informed opinions about the medical issues, delivery of health care and/or the health outcomes as they relate to cases or issues within the medical-legal arena.
Legal Nurse Consultants can help ask the right questions and help facilitate the best decision for you or a loved one, answering or asking questions like:
Where and how do you want to spend your final days?
Are you an organ donor?
If you are an organ donor, do you have restrictions regarding your donation? Such as organs but not tissue. Specific company or school but not parceling out to random places? I mention this because in a recent news story people thought they donated their loved ones to “science” but instead found out they were cut into pieces and sold to various medical schools, laboratories, etc.
Important Read:
Who is your medical power of attorney and does he/she have all the information?
Do your loved ones know your wishes?
How did you tell them?
How do you tell them now?
What if they don’t want to know?
My approach is purposefully direct because even though these conversations are difficult, they are necessary. I hope to help start the conversation so that when the time comes there is a plan in place.
Do your client’s loved ones know their wishes?
How can you help your clients tell them?
Are you comfortable initiating and walking your clients through this conversation? Is your staff?
I can work with you and your staff on initiating these conversations and going through the process.
Resources:
-
The conversation project www.theconversationproject.org
-
Vital talk www.vitaltalk.org
Did you know that Colorado has a medical aid in dying law that was passed in 2016?
Medical aid in dying/colorado end-of-life options act (Proposition 106)
Colorado law allows for terminally ill patients (six-month prognosis or less) to self-administer aid in dying medications.
Let Ptarmigan Legal Nurse Consultants help you in understanding what the laws mean for you.
If you meet these requirements or have any questions about these requirements, contact Ptarmigan Legal Nurse Consultants today to discuss your legal and medical options.
If you:
-
Have a prognosis of six months or less to live
-
Have the mental capacity to make informed decisions
-
Are capable of self-administering and ingesting the medication
-
Need help finding witnesses for this process
-
Need help finding two (2) MDs to make oral requests
-
Need help getting to and from the two MD offices
-
Need help getting the actual script, finding a pharmacy, and pharmacist to fill the script (pharmacists can choose to not participate) or in understanding how to pay for the script as most insurances (federal law prohibits federal entities, including medicare, from paying for the medications) do not cover
-
Need help getting to and from the pharmacy