According to legal observers, the DePuy hip replacement lawsuit multidistrict litigation (MDL) process is steadily progressing. Hip replacement depositions will soon begin to provide information regarding trials. Due to the number of lawsuits and compensation claims filed against Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary company DePuy Orthopaedics Inc, the company decided to hire Broadspire Services. Broadspire specializes in clients’ compensation claims and medical claims. However, the New York Times reports about the negative outcomes of Broadspire services. 


The compensation claims' process works this way. Firstly, the recipient undergoes a revision procedure for a defective ASR device. Secondly, he or she provides documentation proving that the revision procedure occurred, along with its costs. These are all presented to Broadspire, whose physicians decide whether the recipient is worthy of reimbursement. Lastly, Broadpsire reimburses the recipient’s insurance company, Medicare, or the recipient individually.

However, the negative part is, if Broadspire opts not to reimburse the recipient, the recipient receives nothing. In addition to this, if Broadspire decides that the recipient’s injury is not as bad as the recipient claims, it may decide to reimburse the recipient for less.

 

In the case of Paula Laverty of Maine, she was told by her hospital that if she did not pay the amount of $41,578, the hospital would sell the debt to a debt collection agency. After spending weeks trying to fix the situation with DePuy, Laverty found out that J&J had only paid $18,000. This story depicts another flaw in DePuy Broadspires Services.

 

Since 2008 until the recall of DePuy's hip prostheses in 2010, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already received about 400 negative reports against the devices from patients who needed to undergo another hip replacement surgery.


An article about the risks of metal-on-metal hip replacement surgeries was earlier published on the New York Times. The article entitled “Remedy Is Elusive as Metallic Hips Fail at Fast Rate,” presents how the hip operation injures the tissue in the hip area. Among the health risks allegedly caused by DePuy hip devices are cancer due to the presence of chromium and cobalt in the blood, unexplained hip pain, hip dislocation, metal toxicity (metallosis), loosening of hip device, additional hip replacement surgery, detachment of hip device from the bone, pseudotumors, genetic damage (genotoxicty), bone fractures, bone loss, and tissue damages.


“Most major medical centers have seen issues with this device,” based on the newspaper interview with the chairman of orthopedic surgery at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Dr. Joshua J. Jacobs. “This does not come as a surprise,” he adds.


Legal resources report that several clients have initiated DePuy hip replacement lawsuit against Johnson and Johnson. The DePuy hip replacement recall should be an example to other manufacturing companies to ensure safety of their products.





References:

nytimes.com/2011/12/28/business/the-high-cost-of-failing-artificial-hips.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

medicinenet.com/total_hip_replacement/article.htm

nytimes.com/2010/03/04/health/04metalhip.html