There is a practice called Physician self-referral. This is when a physician refers a patient to a medical facility, which he has part ownership, financial interests or investment in. It is thought to be a conflict of interest that a physician will stand to benefit from referring patients to his medical facility for health services. This self-referral practice has a potential to be abused because the physician may over-refer patients for services that may or may not be necessary. That is why; the law was developed to prevent such self-referral practices.

The Stark Law was passed by the federal government to prevent physician self referral and does not allow a physician to refer Medicare or Medicaid patients to facilities that are owned by the physician or a member of the physician's immediate family, unless it is under exception.

Financial relationship is the direct or indirect investment or financial interest in the company or facility that specifically provides designated health services. Compensation arrangements also fall under this category. Therefore a physician cannot refer Medicare or Medicaid patients to a facility that he has financial interests in, otherwise payment can be withheld and not paid.

In the beginning, the law only pertained to physician referrals for clinic lab services. But as the law expanded, when the second version was developed, the Stark law became applicable to a long list of designated health services, which include physical therapy, occupational therapy, radiology, orthotics, outpatient prescription drugs and many more.

The Stark law only involves a referral for various services that is why the definition of referral must be clearly stated for all to understand. Referral is a physician's request for, certifying or recertifying a need, or ordering any designated health service, that is reimbursable by Medicare. This also includes a request for consultation with another physician or any test, procedure or treatment ordered by that other physician. Referral doesn't include services that are personally performed by the referring physician.

There are a few exceptions to the Stark law that fall under, physician services exception, services furnished by an organization of enrollees exception, reserved, academic medical centers exception, implants furnished in an ambulatory surgical center, in-office ancillary services exemption, intra-family rural referrals, eyeglasses and contact lenses following cataract surgery, and Erythropoietin and other dialysis-related drugs exception.

The penalties for violation of the Stark law are severe and include denial of refund, denial of payment, exclusion from the Medicare or Medicaid programs, monetary penalties in a civil court, which can include fines of $15,000 per service violation and $100,000 for each arrangement found to be a scheme for the purpose of ensuring physician referrals.

With the Stark Law in place, health care practitioners must be aware of how it affects them in their billing and treatment of patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid. It is always best, to know and be aware of the Stark law and how it affects your practice.

By: Nitin Chhoda
Nitin Chhoda has a blog at http://www.nitin360.com. Get a free physical therapy marketing system with a DVD, book on physical therapy marketing and over 8 hours of audio at marketing physical therapy and forever change the way you market your clinic.

"Power of attorney" is a legal tool that allows another individual the authority to act as a person's legal representative. This gives that person the power to make binding legal and financial decisions on a person's behalf.

It is not exceptionally difficult to find forms to grant someone the power of attorney via the internet, but there is typically not a lot of explanation of what a power of attorney is. In addition, there is very little information concerning when a person needs a person to act as power of attorney or even what type of power of attorney to choose. These are very difficult decisions to make as giving the power of attorney to someone gives that person considerable power over your life. Because an individual with power of attorney has the ability to sign a different person's name to legal contracts, careful consideration should be given to choosing a person and whether or not limits should be placed on how long the power of attorney will last and what limits should be imposed on a person's powers.

There are, broadly, two basic types of powers of attorney. A "general" power is unlimited in both its scope and in its duration. This granted type of power permits the named individual to act as a person's legal representative in relation to all financial matters until the power is revoked.

A "specific" power creates limits on a person's named representative. It is possible for a "specific" power to bind a representative's powers to one single type of conduct or even a single transaction. As an example, the representative could be granted the power to engage in financial transactions stemming from a specific checking account or be given the power to sign the closing documents for a specific real estate transaction. These activities are very limited and are assigned to a specific type of transaction. They are not nearly as broad as "general" powers are.

Either type of power can be limited in its duration. This means that the person selecting a representative can specify a date after which the power of attorney assigned to that representative will no longer be valid.

Typically, forms granting power of attorney do not have to be registered with the state. If a form grants an individual the rights to engage in transactions and dealings pertaining to real estate, it may be required that the forms be registered with the state.

By: Joseph Devine
If you would like more information concerning power of attorney or other legal transaction related to probate, please visit http://www.probatelawyeraustin.com.

The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act outlines the procedures you are to follow when a debt collector demands that you pay a debt placed with him. Basically, the Fair Debt Collection Act gives you the right to dispute a debt. You accomplish two critical things when you dispute a debt. First, if you dispute the debt within the first 30 days after the debt collector contacts you, he must stop all collection activities until he verifies that you are responsible for the debt. Second, you force the debt collector to disclose your dispute to any credit reporting agency to which he reports. This is valuable because many credit scoring models ignore or disregard disputed debts.

Responding to Debt Collectors within the First 30 Days

The ideal time to dispute a debt is within the first 30 days after you receive the initial letter from the debt collector. The Fair Debt Collection Act refers to this 30 day time-frame as the verification period. During this period, you don't need a valid challenge to dispute the debt. It's allowable for you to simply ask the debt collector to affirm that you really owe the debt. The validation request is important request because it puts the burden of proof on the collector. In other words, the debt collector much produce verification to proof that you own the debt. If he can't produce the verification, he can't take any more action to collect from you.

Of course, if you have a bona fide challenge to the debt, make sure to assert it in your validation letter. Simply requesting verification doesn't require the debt collector to describe the debt as disputed to a credit reporting agency. To raise the requirement that the debt collector describe the debt as disputed, you must submit a specific genuine challenge to the alleged debt.

Dealing with Debt Collectors after the First 30 Days

If you miss the first 30 day period, it's still a good idea to dispute the debt. A valid dispute outside the 30 day time period still forces the debt collector to describe your debt as disputed. Don't produce a flippant dispute because you may undermine any upcoming lawsuit you may file.

If you live in Texas, you have more rights that aren't found under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In Texas, you may dispute a debt at any time by giving the debt collector a letter stating your dispute. Upon receipt of the notice of dispute, the debt collector must cease all collection activities until he looks into your dispute to determine the true sum of money owed on the debt, if any.

No later than 30 days after the debt collector gets your dispute, he must reply in writing either denying your dispute, admitting the dispute, or requesting an extension of the time for his investigation. If he acknowledges your dispute, he must correct his records and send a notice of the inaccuracy along with a copy of the corrected information to each agency to whom he generated a report of the inaccurate record. If he requests additional time, he must correct his records to conform to your request and give notice of the correction to each agency to whom he reported the disputed information. The debt collector may resume collection efforts only after his investigation is complete and he has found the information to be correct.

Challenging Debts with Creditors

The federal Fair Debt Collection Act doesn't apply to creditors. You don't have the same rights when you dispute debts with your original creditors. You do, nevertheless, possess dispute rights by virtue of other federal and state laws with particular sorts of creditors.

For all creditors, Texas law prohibits the creditor from representing that you are willfully refusing payment of a debt when you are disputing the debt in writing. Texas law, however, doesn't specifically make reference to credit reporting like the federal law does. As a practical matter, however, a creditor who states to a credit reporting agency that you have refused to settle a debt after you have challenged that debt is nearly always going to be in violation of Texas law. Texas law is actually broader than the federal law. It disallows making this representation to anyone, not just a credit reporting bureau. Accordingly, a creditor who sells a debt to a third party debt collector while wrongfully representing that you are refusing to pay is likely in violation of Texas law.

Regrettably, there are undecided legal questions involving the relationship of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Texas Debt Collection Act that make it difficult to hold a creditor responsible for breaking Texas law in its report to credit reporting agencies. But it's still worth sending your dispute letter. The creditor may comply to head off the possibility that federal law will be construed to allow the enforcement of Texas state law requirements. The dispute letter may, therefore, keep the creditor from misrepresenting your debt to third parties other than credit reporting bureaus.
By: Harvey Cox
Harvey L. Cox is a an attorney and certified mediator in Texas. He is the author of How to Collect Your Own Judgment in Texas and the founder of The Texas Judgment Collection Center http://www.TexasJudgmentCollection.com and NoLegalese.com http://www.NoLegalese.com .

Parents usually feel responsible when their children do bad things - a sense of shortcoming or failure when children make bad choices or carelessly cause harm to another. However, whether parents can be held legally liable for the acts of their children is not commonly known. The answer, not surprisingly, is sometimes "yes" and sometimes "no."

General Rule
The general rule is that the mere relationship of parent and child does not impose any legal liability on the parent for the bad acts or carelessness of the child. Instead, parents can be held liable only where the child is acting as an agent of the parent (that is, acting under the authority or the direction of the parent) or some negligence (carelessness) of the parent made the bad act possible.

Regarding liability as an agent, some examples would include harm resulting from a car accident caused by the negligence of a child when the child was running an errand at the direction of a parent or a parent encouraging a child to physically attack another person.

Parents can also be held liable for their own negligence which contributes to a child causing injury to another. Examples of that type of behavior would be a parent serving a child alcohol and then permitting the child to drive a car, or a parent failing to properly supervise a child in a store, which leads to the child damaging fragile merchandise.

So, the general rule is that the child must have been acting on behalf of the parent or the parent must have made the harm possible through the parent's own negligence in order for the parent to be held legally liable for harm caused by a child.

Statutory Liability
Parents can also be held liable for certain bad acts of their children under a statute titled "Liability for Tortious Acts of Children." That statute provides that any parent whose child is found liable or adjudged guilty by a court of a willful act resulting in personal injuries or property damages shall be held liable to the person who suffers the injury.

The statute applies to willful (intentional) acts of children, such as violence or vandalism. If those types of intentional acts are committed, a parent can be held financially responsible up to certain dollar limits, despite having no prior knowledge, involvement or opportunity to prevent the harm.

The limits of liability are $1,000 for injuries suffered by any one person as a result of one act or a continuous series of acts and the total sum of $2,500, regardless of the number of persons who suffer injury as a result of one act or a continuous series of acts. Accordingly, if a child violently attacks and hurts another child, the parents of the attacking child can be held liable for up to $1,000 of damages. Also, if a child commits a series of continuous acts of vandalism, such as damaging several houses one night, that child's parents could be held liable for $1,000 of damages for each person harmed and a total of $2,500 for the whole vandalism spree, regardless of the amount of damages or number of people affected.

Although the general rule is that parents are not held liable for the acts of their children, there are certain situations in which parents will be held responsible for the bad acts of their offspring.

By: Timothy Rayne
Tim Rayne is the author of numerous publications on Personal Injury Law and is a graduate of the Temple University Beasley School of Law's Master's in Trial Advocacy Program. Tim can be reached at http://www.macelree.com/traynelaw