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Who Represented Jackson?

A side note to the reader who found our humble blog through a Google search for "bra padding" -- we're flattered and hope you found what you are looking for.

On to this great John Dorshner article about Jackson Health System settling a lawsuit that was arbitrated before former Chief Judge Davis:

Under a court-ordered arbitration agreement, International Portfolio of West Conshohocken, Pa., is getting $310 million in billings that Jackson has never asked the patients to pay. Whatever money the company collects, it keeps. Jackson gets nothing.
The arbitration agreement -- revealed recently to The Miami Herald -- settled a lawsuit filed by International Portfolio that alleged Jackson had reneged on a 2006 contract. Under the contract, the company paid Jackson $5.7 million to get $1.8 billion in billings that the health system had tried but been unable to collect on.

Coming on the heels of a grand jury report earlier this month that called Jackson ``a colossal mess,'' Sal 
Barbera, a former hospital administrator who teaches at Florida International University, found the new revelation ``unacceptable . . . an example of mismanagement on the part of Jackson. . . . I can only hope the taxpayers of Miami-Dade County are not paying for this due to the incompetence of Jackson.''

Barbera noted some uninsured patients could be extremely lucrative. Besides the poor who have no coverage, ``Jackson also attracts wealthy, self-pay international patients that are more than capable of paying their healthcare bills. . . . What about patients that come to Jackson for cosmetic surgery that is not covered by insurance?''

Ted Shaw, Jackson's interim chief financial officer since March, said hospitals frequently sell off old, uncollected bills, but giving away billings that a hospital has never tried to collect on was highly unusual. He said this was a bad deal that Jackson was stuck with because of actions before his time.

So who was the superstar who litigated this case against Jackson?  That one's easy:

The company's Miami attorney, Joel Hirschhorn, told about criticism that the deal was bad for Jackson, responded: ``That means I did a good job.''

Indeed he did.

But who represented Jackson and possibly did the opposite of a "good job"?

John doesn't say.

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on September 01, 2010 (boomark / email).