Month: January 2016

Top 5 Qualities of Landscape Pathway Materials

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You can easily find your way to a better yard with the right landscape pathway materials. If you are looking for new solutions for your outdoor area, then you will also want to consider the qualities for the hardscape you are working with. This will make a difference in how you approach your next landscape project while ensuring that you have the right options for your pathway. Following are the top five qualities to look for with the materials.

1. Water Resistant. A common mistake that many make with landscape pathway materials is the water erosion that occurs. Often, jointing sand, stabilizer for aggregate pathways and other materials don’t have resistance to water. You want to make sure that you have the materials that allow you to maintain the pathway for a longer time frame.

2. Durability. Nothing is better than a durable pathway. You not only want to find stronger paving stones or aggregate. It is also important to make sure that your jointing sand or stabilizer is durable with the pathway. This will assist with a long – lasting solution for your pathway.

3. Low Maintenance. Even though all landscape pathway materials claim to have the best options for maintenance, they often erode quickly or don’t provide you with the correct solutions to upgrade your path. You want to find materials that allow you to replace sections of your pathway or to find solutions that are based on long lasting formulas.

4. Easy to Apply. Some of the landscape pathway materials are mixed with chemicals and other materials that are not compatible with aggregate or paving stones. You want to find options that are natural and are able to easily mix and work with the applications for your pathway.

5. No Chemical Residue. For paving stones and other unique materials, there is often a white haze left behind from poly haze. If you are applying specific pathways, then you want to make sure it won’t leave behind chemicals and white residue. Environmentally friendly solutions with the landscape pathway materials you are looking for will provide you with different levels of compatibility for your hardscape.

Upgrade your outdoor area without problems. If you are looking for different options, then landscape pathway materials can assist you with the desired options. There are a variety of alternatives that you can look into, all which will provide you with high quality, long lasting materials for your next hardscape project.

The Weakness of Contemporary Cultural Medicine

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The term Cultural Medicine is used to refer to changes to a medical system provided specifically to reach out to and serve a diverse culture. The title is applied differently than Integrative Medicine. Integrative Medicine acknowledges that there are different preventive and reactive ways to address issues of preventive health, health maintenance, disease, injury and medical care (IntgMed), many of them cross-cultural. Cultural Medicine is applied to all that is not specifically IntgMed. Rather, it is that which supports underlying layers of infrastructure required to deliver ever-expanding, culture-specific positions, products and services, rather than focused, inclusive services.

An example of inclusive delivery is recognition that the national language is English. A focused, nationally oriented, fully integrative system of medicine would acknowledge the beneficial elements of all IntgMed, but it would be delivered in English (except non-translatable elements). This approach encourages all citizens to learn and excel in English and markedly limits the cost of IntgMed products/services components delivery. If for example, government-paid and/or delivered services focus on delivering a more culture-neutral, English-based IntgMed service only, costs would be markedly reduced and all citizen-consumers would be encouraged to become more English-language proficient. As an aside, pharmaceutical products, medical technologies, acupuncture needles, physical therapeutic manipulations and exercises, and other key elements of IntgMed do not recognize the human body as gender, ethnicity or culture-specific – they simply perform functions. Such subdivisions are behaviors of service providers.

One of the primary sets of questions ignored by state and U.S. governmental agencies are:

  1. Who is most qualified to determine if a proposal or intervention should be that in which we should invest given all other needs, ideas, and proposals?
  2. Who should be responsible for payment for this proposal/intervention if we proceed with it?
  3. Define success. What does it look like?
  4. When (initial and follow-up) and how shall we measure the effectiveness of the subsequent program, service, or intervention?
  5. Is it not appropriate for payers (e.g., public taxpayers) to receive easily accessible, unbiased reporting of interim services delivery progress and performance measurements?”, and
  6. What will we do if measured results are not as expected and desired (e.g., inadequate Return on Investment)?

If you took your car in for service, paid for the services, and only fifty percent of the claimed fixes were effective, would you be satisfied? No, you would not be satisfied. If the same automotive repair company employed you, yet still provided you and your peers with the above-described poor service, would you then be satisfied and recommend to your friends that they should be satisfied in similar circumstances? You should respond, “No.” You should not be favorably biased toward the repair company simply because it employs you. However, government initiatives usually provide many millions, if not billions of dollars to the recipients of their investments, including the creation of well-paying jobs. And, unlike as would be the case in private industry, recipients of these public windfall monies and opportunities are loath to give up your tax money, and are often willing to publicly denigrate you for demanding that they be held accountable (e.g., fix the entire car as promised versus aren’t you satisfied with partial function?)

There are numerous governmental pseudo-medical/medical programs that are abysmal failures, that continue to expand. In spite of their prolonged failures at missions to curtail drug abuse, misuse, pharmaceutical products-related deaths, decrease STD/STI incidence, minimize gender-critical maladies, and social disruptions due to related issues, the programs and funding persist. With grand budgets and swollen senses of importance and entitlement, no one receives good answers to above listed six questions from these program representatives. Such are the effects and weaknesses of contemporary Cultural Medicine. Everyone in the culture, position-empowered or not, rich and poor, citizens or not, payers or not, aware of and sensitive to current budget constraints or not, believes that they should receive timely, broad-based, sometimes very expensive, individualized care and financing of their programs. And, numerous cultural subgroups (geographic, ethnic, gender-specific, age-specific, financial, religious, secular, other) with sufficient financing and/or sophisticated representation, lobby for special consideration. To suggest that they do not have the right to do so would be politically incorrect and insensitive, right?

Contact your local, regional, state and national government representatives to determine how they are addressing the weakness of contemporary Cultural Medicine in your neighborhood.

Claiming Compensation From a Liability Case

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There may be a few instances when it is imperative to hire a Phoenix liability attorney. When many people think of liability they often times refer to their automobiles. Liability insurance is the first thought that pops into their heads. But do you truly know what the term liability is referring to?

The term liability is thrown around a lot, especially with insurance companies, but what liability truly means is that a person can be held accountable for an incident they purposely or accidentally caused. This is a very common situation in car accidents. Say you’re driving along and a car rear-ends you. You get out and find the whole back end of your car is smashed in. The other driver who hit your car is liable for the damages they caused and must be held financially responsible for correcting the damages.

In this article, we’re going to talk about two other types of liability that a Phoenix attorney deals with. These two cases are for product liability and premises liability. Both of these terms are pretty much self explanatory.

Product liability is when certain damages are caused to customers because of a faulty product that they purchased. Such as if someone was to experience electrocution from an electrical item. This particular instance would be considered at fault of the person who manufactures the product, but only if there were no tags to tell the customer that an electrocution was possible by utilizing the product.

Premises liability makes the person who is in charge of that particular piece of land liable for any injuries that may occur. Amusement parks must have this form of liability insurance in the case that one of their rides malfunctions or someone gets seriously hurt while enjoying the activities at the park.

A Phoenix liability claim is a serious allegation, and you should first consult with an experienced attorney to determine if you have a justifiable claim. Don’t miss out on correcting a company or person of their negligence.

Posted in Law

TENS Increase Your Profit Margin?

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Advertisements are being sent to doctors via facsimile in various parts of the United States from a California company asking them if TENS/EMS units are presently being prescribed to patients for home use? If not, this company reports that they can show how to give patients drug-less pain relief and add a new profit center to the doctors office with TENS/EMS.

The company says their program is simple – they sell TENS to doctors for $29.00 (when 2 or more are purchased) EMS for $38 (when 2 or more purchased) and instruct the doctor on billing procedures for the TENS and fitting fee where the profits range from $200.00 to $600.00 per unit depending on the type of insurance coverage and amount charged for the unit/fitting fee. Next, the company indicates that they provide the patient with necessary supplies (batteries, pads & wires) and will bill the insurance company direct.

Good deal? Maybe.

Many state regulatory boards have prohibitions against excessive charges for health care services rendered – could the billing insurers $200 to $600 for providing a patient with a TENS the doctor purchased for $29 be considered excessive? What would the involved payer think of this activity – are they going to knowingly pay $200 to $600 for your providing the patient with a $29 TENS unit? And, what happens when insurance doesn’t pay – is the patient going to be billed the higher rates for the $29 unit?

I would recommend that doctors ensure that this practice activity is consistent with their administrative laws, third-party payer rules and to check it out first with their attorney prior to use.