Rebecca Adelman, Founder at Adelman Law Firm

02/27/24 • 41 min

What she does: Rebecca is the founder of Adelman Law Firm in Tennessee. Her practice is concentrated in healthcare and insurance defense and business litigation, and includes representation of insurance companies and long-term care providers and their insurers - both regionally and nationally. The firm also provides claims management services to senior living insurance companies. Rebecca is involved in state and national legislative matters on behalf of the healthcare industry and serves as Legal Advisor for the American Assisted Living Nurses Association and the National Association of Health Care Assistants. She founded the National Long-Term Care Defense Summit, co-founded the Adelman-Mettle Palliative Care Alliance, and is a member of Claims and Litigation Management Alliance. In addition, Rebecca is a published author and national speaker and contributor.

On risk: "Risk in senior living is multifaceted, there are so many aspects of senior living ... How we define, view, and think about risk, really depends on that we all agree there are varying types of risks in senior living. There's obvious risks of injury, or just an incident and an outcome, a negative outcome, but then there are a lot of other risks, emerging risks, and some smoldering risks, all sorts of risks embedded in all of these little subparts of the ecosystem ... There's so much at stake where risk is concerned in senior living that the importance of considering it cannot be overemphasized. We need to really appreciate how risk is managed in organizations because risk management is everyone's business, it's everyone's responsibility ... From my vantage point along the whole risk spectrum, I'm showing up at the 9s and the 10s and moving down the risk spectrum into the 6s and 7s. The real place for everyone to begin in its least complex form, with all types of risk management, to mitigate risks, to hopefully eliminate risk, certainly to identify it so it doesn't come up, is really when it's in the 1s and the 2s. Proactivity would be the word of the day ... Here's the ticket, the real small key that opens up the big door is implementation. You've got to implement across your organization."

Previous Episode

Carolyn Johnsen, Partner at Dickinson Wright

What she does: CJ is a partner at Dickinson Wright in Phoenix, Arizona and spearheaded the formation of Dickinson Wright's Distressed Health Care Restructuring Group. CJ's experience includes creating complex plans of reorganization for multi-million dollar companies in a wide-range of industries, including healthcare, mortgage lending, and real estate among others. She has also guided numerous boards and senior managers in developing strategies and solutions for revising operations and restructuring debt to generate the emergence of a stronger business through bankruptcy, or to take advantage of acquisition and sale opportunities, including the application of bankruptcy procedures favorable to corporate securities regulation compliance. In addition, CJ has negotiated multiple multi-million dollar transactions with lenders, investment bankers and brokers, asset purchasers and sellers, and governmental agencies. CJ has published extensive writings and over 100 speaking presentations to educate clients, lawyers, accountants and corporate representatives on bankruptcy, restructuring, sales and acquisitions from a business perspective.

On risk: "You have to get down to the business aspects of it [risk], it's in the health care space, it's no different than any other business in a way because it's a question of cash in and cash out. And the problem that's unique to the health care industry is just the enormous regulation and that makes it more difficult to predict ... If you are looking at risk, you're looking at needing a business plan, just like any other business, you're going to need to know going in okay, what is A to B, what is the B? Here's A, we're sitting here today, where are we trying to be at B? ... It's been a very difficult time risk-wise for health care because of those particular factors [labor shortages, labor costs, inflation, reimbursement fluidity], which probably every other business is suffering somewhat the same problems. But like I said, the risk all gets back to having a good game plan"

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Debra Henneberry, EdD and Abner Flores, School of Aviation and Transportation Technology at Purdue University

What they do:

Dr. Debra Henneberry, EdD is an Assistant Professor in the College of Aviation and Transportation Technology at Purdue University. She's an experienced commercial pilot, flight instructor, and aeronautics professor. Prior to her current role she served as Assistant Professor in the Aviation Department at Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in New York City. She also served as a government administrator for several years. Dr. Henneberry has worked as a first responder and emergency medical technician for over ten years. Her research interests focus on human factors and she has spoken about pilot training at a number of international aviation psychology conferences.

Professor Abner Flores is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology at Purdue University. He is an experienced ex-military pilot, navigator, and aircraft technician, who has served in both, the U.S. military and the Honduran Air Force. Over the last 11 years, he has been traveling around the world, teaching and training professional pilot courses in several countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, and lecturing in colleges and universities across the U.S. Prior to coming to Purdue University, Professor Flores was a lecturer at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, Aviation program. At Purdue, his research interests are focused on Human-Interactive Pilot Enhancing Performance Technologies (Simulation), Data Science for business processes modeling in aviation and Neuroergonomics. He currently teaches courses in Aerospace Vehicle Systems Design, Analysis And Operations, and Human Factors for Flight Crews.

On risk:

"Risk is something that we look into, from every possible perspective associated to whatever it is that there is anything going on, with the understanding that when we think risk it's a constant ... When we focus on what it is that we are trying to accomplish, and in this case as far as in aviation is simply we minimize risk, we become safer. And guess what, when we reduce those levels of risk, we become safer, automatically at the same time we are becoming higher performers. And that's what we want. We want to perform at our best. And so risk gets to be where it needs to be down there and we can fly above it ... Fatigue is culprit number one, or threat number one, to what we call in aviation situational awareness. It means that you're not anymore connected with the environment, you're not anymore within our concepts of aviation connected with the airplane, you are not any more connected with any one of the systems, you're going to be seeing without seeing ... People under emergency situations may revert back to their native when under stress ... Everybody must be involved in risk because risk affects us all ... If the human element is not up to speed, and that typically is unfortunately the case, then there are going to be issues needing to be resolved."

The Risky Health Care Business - Rebecca Adelman, Founder at Adelman Law Firm

Transcript

Scott Nelson 0:01

Welcome to The Risky Health Care Business Podcast, where we help you prepare for the future by sharing stories, insights, and skills from expert voices in and around the United States health care world with a mission to inform, educate, and help health care organizations and individuals, ranging from one doctor practices to large integrated systems and organizations throughout the dental, medical, and veterinary health care industry with risk, while hopefully having s