Charlottesville Consumer Healthcare Attorney

Advocating for Patients Throughout Virginia

Should you experience a healthcare-related dispute, you deserve a fierce legal advocate to defend your rights. Whether you are up against an insurance company, government agency, medical provider’s billing office, or long-term care provider, we are here to support and vigorously protect your interests using every legal tool available. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and like you are at a disadvantage relative to the size and might of these entities, but our attorney has a full understanding of Virginia’s healthcare system and can fight for you.

At Norton Health Law, we are passionate about protecting consumers in healthcare-related cases that focus our legal services on our patient needs. Our founding attorney, Beth Norton, has a unique background that gives our firm a competitive edge in handling healthcare conflict. Before becoming a lawyer, Beth served as a nurse and nurse-leader in two Virginia hospitals. She became skilled in understanding her patients’ immediate and long-term needs as well as how to communicate complex medical jargon into digestible language. After law school, Beth spent 6 years training under some of the best healthcare attorneys in the Commonwealth, representing healthcare providers in regulatory compliance, malpractice litigation, and contract matters. All along, though, her legal training was to prepare her for her real purpose and passion, patient advocacy, which she began when she became a nurse.

Consumer healthcare problems generally fall into one of two categories: disputes with providers over the care received, and disputes with providers and insurance companies over payment for care.

Helping you with Provider Disputes over Care

When you receive healthcare services, you trust your provider to provide you with the highest quality of care possible. The vast majority of doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers work very hard and do their absolute best to help their patients. Even with the best care, things don’t always turn out the way we hoped, and some less-than-desirable results are simply unavoidable.

But in the case of corporate healthcare providers, their loyalty is divided. A healthcare corporation, like any other corporation, has a duty to produce for its shareholders the greatest return on their investment. One of the most obvious ways corporate healthcare providers increase the profit of their shareholders is by cutting back on their biggest expense: payroll. They choose to understaff their facilities, leaving their patients and residents with substandard care and their staff with an unworkable caseload.

Under those circumstances, healthcare providers who really care about their patients and residents are forced to provide care that is substandard at best, and unlawful at worst.

Our founding healthcare attorney, Beth Norton, spent 6 years working as a nurse within the healthcare system, learning what the law requires of nurses and other individual healthcare providers. She spent another 6 years after law school advising corporate healthcare facilities, particularly long-term care facilities, regarding what the law requires of them.

Corporate healthcare providers have teams of attorneys who do nothing but advise them about what the law does and doesn’t require of them. This gives corporate healthcare providers an almost insurmountable advantage in disputes with their patients and residents because most patients and residents don’t know their rights under the law.

Well, we do.

If you haven’t received or aren’t receiving the care you deserve, you need an advocate who not only knows and can defend your legal rights, but one who knows the system inside and out, and can navigate you through it. Our team has both the legal and healthcare experience you need on your side. We will insist that you get the care you are entitled to under the law, and we will hold those accountable who have violated your rights so you can get the help you need to live a fuller life, and to force the provider to take corrective measures that will keep everyone safer.

Helping you with Healthcare Payment Disputes

Even if you actually do receive the healthcare services you expect and deserve, sometimes providers overcharge patients, and in those cases, we can also advocate on your behalf to make sure the amount the provider bills is appropriate and fair.

And if your insurance company refuses to pay for a service it is required to pay for according to your insurance contract, we can help by insisting they provide you with every bit of the coverage to which you are entitled.

Healthcare insurance is intended to give us peace of mind in knowing that we are protected if an unexpected health problem arises.

Unfortunately, insurance companies often look for any reason to avoid paying out even the most open-and-shut, obviously valid claims. This can lead to a frustrating process where you are forced to wade through corporate and government bureaucracy in search of the benefits to which you are entitled. Insurance companies have entire departments devoted to trying to poke holes in your claim or otherwise keep you from obtaining the benefits you are owed.

A breach of your insurance agreement is frustrating enough, but when you’re also dealing with a health problem, a long, frustrating fight with your insurance company is the last thing you need. That is why Norton Health Law is passionate about advocating for patients and demanding the insurance companies provide the coverage they promised you – the coverage you paid for.

If you are a patient unsure of your rights in a consumer healthcare conflict, hire a Charlottesville lawyer with multifaceted experience. Call 434-978-3100 or reaching out to us online.