Where to get life care cost data

Survey data for cost of services, supplies, durable medical goods and equipment. etc. has been collected annually by MediSys, Inc., for over 15 years.

Among the companies surveyed are:
Apria Medical
Alamo Mobility
APC Home Care
Girling Health Care
Central Texas Rehabilitation Associates
Columbia Case Management, Inc.

Estimating economic damages based Mexican wages

Sources of Mexican wage information:

www.inegi.gob.mx: The Mexican version of the U.S. BLS gold standard for wage information. A wealth of information on salaries (salarios, ingreso, and -->Remuneraciones). Many of the statistics and wage information is provided in U.S. dollars. Tables showing the salary distribution (rangos de ingreso mensual) can also be found.

Information can also be found on the age distribution of Mexican workers. The age distribution is useful because it can help determine a reasonable Mexican work life. There are also statistics on the unemployment rate and the minimum wage for Mexican workers. The minimum wage varies by Mexican state.

(In some setting, the low end estimate of the loss of Mexican earnings capacity can be determined using the minimum wage)

Other sources:

Annuario Estadistico De Los Estados Unidos Mexicano

Instituto Nacional De Estadistica Geografia e Informatica

Life care planners in their own words

How do life care planners determine the cost of medical services and future medical care needs for injured plaintiffs? Here is an interesting exceprt from a life care planner deposition in Madison, Iowa.:



Page 1

13 Now, one of the things you indicate here is that
14 the current cost data represents the fair market value of
15 goods and services in the geographic domain where the
16 majority of care is anticipated. Is that where those
17 figures come from?
....
23 A. Right.
24 Q. -- represents the fair market place for goods and
25 services in a geographic domain where the majority of care

Page 2
1 is anticipated.
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. Is that what was used here?
4 A. Well, actually, we used the Madison, Iowa and
5 surrounding area where we expected the majority of her
6 specialty care to be performed.
7 Q. And where -- where do I get that data from the
8 Madison, Iowa area regarding costs or services?
9 A. Those things in which it's tied to a geographic
10 factor, such as Physicians' Fee Reference, where we have
11 physicians' service and therapeutic services and
12 diagnostics are geographically adjusted. For my inpatient
13 hospitalizations, we're using 75th percentile for the
14 nation, because the nation is broken in 11 regions
15 throughout the United States and then bundled. And so
16 we're representing the 75th percentile; that's Solucient.
17 The Physicians' Fee Reference is what has the
18 geographical adjustments. So physicians' services,
19 surgeons' services, psychological services,
20 physical/occupational therapy services and all the
21 diagnostic services, anything that CPT code generated is
22 adjusted for the geographical factor.
23 Q. You said you use a 75th percentile?
24 A. Seventy-fifth percentile for both: the
25 professional services and hospitalization. I'll let you

Page 3
1 know, by the way, Solucient has been acquired this year by
2 Thomson. Thomson Healthcare Corp. If you're going to do
3 a research on it.
4 Q. Thomson Healthcare Corp?
5 A. Thomson Healthcare something; I'll have to go
6 back and get it. Just renewed our data with them and are
7 going through evaluating it again.

International prespective on economic damages

South Africa:

A prostitute who is suing her former employers on a charge of unfair dismissal.

...Here in Cape Town (prostitution is illegal as in against the law in South Africa) a woman sued for wrongful termination seeking past and future damages. She was a prostitute who was fired because her madam said she was too "picky" regarding whom she would "work" for. So they canned her.

However, Michael Bagraim [an attorney in South Africa] said the woman should have protection under the Labour Relations Act. "Every single person who is employed and receives a salary, even if they receive it by doing something illegal, is entitled to protection.

"The Labour Court should not judge based on the Criminal Procedures Act nor should the judgment be morally binding. "They will be governed by the constitution and if she wins, it will be a landmark ruling."

Discrimination damages vs.Retaliation damages

Is the defendant's economist failure to mitigate analysis under-estimating the plaintiff's losses in the employment termination case?

In employment termination cases one tactic of defense attorneys is to use labor economists and vocational experts to assess the plaintiffs ability to obtain replacement employment that pays as much or more than they recieved while employed with the defendant.

Typically, the analysis reveals that the damages for the indiviual plaintiff are cut off immediately or relatively soon after the date of trial. They will typically not go on until retirement.

In case where the plaintiff is claiming retaliation by the employer, the damage calculation by the defendant's economist may under estimate the damages. In these types of cases, the defendant's economist needs to examine not only the jobs that they can get but they also need to explore the jobs that the plaintiff may have been able to get had they not been retaliated against. In some instances, the allegations are that the defendant put the word out that the plaintiff is not a good worker and caused them to lose out on job opportunities.

As a consequence, one approriate measure of the damages may by the difference between the jobs that were foregone (as a result of the defendants actions) and current employment. These types of damages may be estimated to go further into the future.

Is your expert too expensive?

Expertpages, has released the results of an on-going survey of experts. They found:

* Those responding charged an average of more than $290 an hour.
* All the experts charge at least $100 an hour, and 77% charge more than $200 an hour.
* At the top of the scale, 2% charge $600 or more per hour.

*Hourly rates are the way to go.
*No one reported using flat rates for their expert witness work.

The top rates were:


Medical/Surgical: $398
Psychiatry & Psychology: $367
Food, Hotel & Restaurant:$317
Business & Financial: : $316