| | Is this what being an attorney feels like? I've got to say that I'm loving the work. The workload is picking up though, and I hope I don't feel too overwhelmed to do anything about it.
I finally finished my first memo about public benefits for victims of human trafficking. It's interesting seeing how much of a response it has elicited from both political parties and all the different regulations that have been put out there by all sorts of agencies. Once that was done, I could finally edit the memo with the feedback from my supervising attorneys and prepare the information sheet.
This is going to be fascinating. HRH and LSNC are part of a nascent coalition working with the Rescue and Restore effort to coordinate services and advocacy for victims of sex and labor trafficking, sort of like CAST is in Los Angeles. I'm working with our outreach coordinator on this, and she has been nothing but helpful in getting me as many resources as possible to do this project. I may be presenting this to the larger coalition, which makes me excited that this project will result in something but nervous about my contribution being so overly hyped.
I'm also starting the hospital visitations next week as part of my contribution to a larger survey on compliance with California law on providing notice of policies for discount and charity care for uninsured and underinsured patients. I am really looking forward to checking in on these hospitals to see what the situation is like, although I am nervous about visiting the ERs. ERs make me nervous, and I certainly don't want to get in the way.
Today, the start of three projects were tossed at me. My project with MAN will be worked out (hopefully) Friday morning, when my supervising attorney and I head out to Del Paso Heights another time to figure things out. I'm feeling really bad about this part of my internship. It's already the end of week four, and I haven't done anything other than talk. What if this talk leads to nothing but wasted time? I don't want to leave it like that.
The managing attorney gave me the giant case file for something that LSNC may be appealing to the 9th District Court of Appeals. I've been reading through the file just to get acquainted with the specifics, and I'm really just disgusted by the bureaucracy of it. It's an unusual case, but it strikes me as normal in how the patient is being treated by the insurer. I don't know; maybe I'm just jaded. But the story makes me want to work harder. Right now, I'm supposed to do a memo on the balance between specific allegations of amounts versus the attorney's ethical obligations to the facts. I hope my Civ Pro grade doesn't fail me know (since I finally know what it is, and I'm not at all disappointed by it).
My supervising attorney, in between all the jokes and stories, started me on part of one of her projects about Medi-Cal fee for service providers in South Sacramento and Del Paso Heights. I'll be making phone calls to providers to see if they are taking new clients. It seems pretty simple, and it should be a good start to getting her project further along. She showed me this GIS map of the percentage of FFS beneficiaries in Sac County, and they were concentrated in three zip codes. It was actually quite shocking. Of the three regions, we've only thus far found one provider in Del Paso Heights, which by far has the highest concentration of beneficiaries. When we went to visit the area, we couldn't find a single clinic or medical facility.
Otherwise, there are a lot of meetings. I'm attending the Sacramento Health Improvement Project (?) meeting tomorrow morning, HRH case review in the afternoon, MAN meeting Friday morning, LSNC Sacramento bowling party (to make up for the cancelled all-LSNC picnic), and many others. My supervisor is working on a Medi-Cal case that may go to a hearing, so I'll get to help prepare for that and may get to go to the hearing and see one first-hand.
I'm really getting excited. But it's scary, and I don't want to mess things up for any of the people involved.
Is this what growing up is like? Because I'm having second thoughts... |
| | Posted 6/26/2008 1:51 AM - 6 views - 0 comments
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