Kathie Gagne died 4,510 days ago.

Risperdal News
November 4th, 2013 @ 9:07 am

Health care manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries will pay more than $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil investigations over allegations that they marketed three drugs for uses that were never approved, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday in Washington.

The settlements also cover claims that the companies gave “kickbacks” to physicians and to nursing home pharmacies to promote the drugs’ usage.

The claims involve the drugs Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor.

Holder said Johnson & Johnson improperly marketed the drug Risperdal for treatment of psychotic symptoms in elderly, non-schizophrenic patients, even though the drug was approved only to treat schizophrenia.

He said Rispidol and Invega also were improperly marketed for dementia treatment.

That led insurance companies to pay for claims they never should have been paying, he said.

“(The companies) lined their pockets at the expense of American taxpayers (and) patients,” Holder said.
via CNN.com

This news comes 448 days after mom died, and once again I want to start screaming and punching and kicking.

A Follow-Up
October 31st, 2013 @ 11:26 am

Early on Halloween, 2013, I received an email from a lawyer in Florida who is a family friend and had contacted me the previous week. He wrote:

 
 

Continue reading …

Sending Medical Records via Email
October 30th, 2013 @ 11:11 am
 
 

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Yet Another HIPAA Release
October 25th, 2013 @ 2:46 pm
 
 

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Web access
October 24th, 2013 @ 12:33 pm
 
 

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News from Shane
October 24th, 2013 @ 12:25 pm
 
 

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A New Hope
October 21st, 2013 @ 10:06 am

Just before 9 o’clock this morning I received a phone call from Frank Ashton, the attorney Kelly Mathis had asked to help with the investigation of mom’s case. Mr. Ashton and I spoke for just under an hour; I gave him the abridged version of the events leading to mom’s death and he asked many questions. He also asked me to send him a copy of the autopsy report prepared by Dr. Wolf, which he said Mr. Mathis did not give to him.
Continue reading …

Reaching Out
October 18th, 2013 @ 1:43 pm
 
 

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Inconvenience
October 18th, 2013 @ 9:16 am

I’ll be honest with you: I did not see this one coming. I just received this email from the lawyer who has been handling mom’s case since the beginning of the year:

 
 

Of course I immediately Googled “Kelly B. Mathis, Esquire”.

I’ll save you the trouble of doing the same and just link directly to the most relevant search results:
Kelly Mathis, Lawyer Accused In Veterans Charity Fraud, Says Arrest Ruined His Life (VIDEO)
Kelly Mathis, Attorney Convicted In $300 Million Gambling Scheme, Could Face Dozens Of Years In Prison

I emailed Mr. Ashton as soon as I finished processing this new development:

 
 
Waiting
October 17th, 2013 @ 9:45 am

I hadn’t heard anything from Katie Perez, the legal assistant at K.B. Mathis, P.A., since September 26th — more than two weeks — so on Monday, October 14th, I sent her an email asking for an update.

It’s been three days since then, so I forwarded that same email to Katie again and added this note:

 
 

I received the following email from her, in response to Monday’s email, about forty-five minutes after sending that: