Daily Archives: January 2, 2013 - 5 results

Healthcare flexible spending accounts are an employee benefit by which workers can set aside a certain amount of their salary, pre-tax, to use for healthcare costs. Some 33 million American workers currently take advantage of FSAs to save on their income tax bills. Contributions an employee makes to an FSA are deducted from the employee’s salary before federal, state or social security taxes are calculated. By using an FSA, you decrease your taxable income and increase your spendable income.   …

  Lawyers.com Editor-in-Chief Larry Bodine tells the stories of five oddball crimes. You might even wonder whether some of these crooks wanted to get caught. How hard was it to crack these cases? Do criminals return to the scene of the crime? With one “repeat offender,” you may find it a bit surprising how soon and how often she liked to rob the same Massachusetts liquor store. Larry describes how plans to rob a Vermont 7-Eleven “backfired” with one criminal …

Biotech giant Amgen has agreed to shell out $762 million to settle a series of lawsuits alleging that the company illegally sold and marketed anemia medication. The lawsuits were filed by the federal government and all 50 states, accompanied by a number of whistleblower lawsuits. At the heart of the charges were allegations that the company illegally marketed its drugs for off-label purposes, and encouraged doctors to use their products by giving away free medication which health facilities could subsequently …

Trinity Health Corporation on Dec. 20 settled charges brought by the EEOC over the employer’s alleged policy of denying or delaying severance to employees who file discrimination charges after leaving their jobs. In general, employers cannot punish employees who exercise their right to file discrimination charges with the EEOC – it violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which defines unlawful employment practices. But Becky Thompson’s case is not as simple as it sounds, according to employment …

At least 80,000 medical “never events” have occurred during hospital surgeries over the past two decades, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins University. A “never event” is defined as a mistake that should be preventable by basic procedural diligence, such as leaving a surgical implement inside a patient, performing the wrong procedure, operating on the wrong part of the body or even operating on the wrong patient altogether. The numbers are disturbing for anyone who has an upcoming …