|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
We are excited to announce James Anthony, DO, JD, MBA, has joined GGRM as our first Chief Medical Officer.
“Achieving our vision of being Nevada’s premier injury law firm takes more than just saying the words,” said Jason Mills, GGRM Strategic Development Partner. “It means building a firm that provides our clients with a true advantage when pursuing a workers’ compensation or personal injury claim. Not only is Dr. Anthony an experienced clinician and teacher, but he is also one of the most respected Permanent Partial Disability (PPD) rating doctors in the state.”
As an approved Rating Panel Physician for the state of Nevada, Dr. Anthony has assessed and rated thousands of workers’ compensation claims. In his new position as GGRM Chief Medical Officer, he will assist GGRM clients in preparing for PPD examinations and train the firm’s attorneys on specific nuances and aspects to the 5th edition AMA Guide to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, which provides a reliable, repeatable measurement framework for assessing permanent impairment and has been the trusted gold standard for physicians, patients, and the legal and regulatory communities in Nevada for the last 20 years.
“While it’s fairly common for workers’ compensation and personal injury law firms to consult with medical professionals, we know of no other Nevada law firm with a physician on staff, much less a physician that also has a law degree.”
“While it’s fairly common for workers’ compensation and personal injury law firms to consult with medical professionals, we know of no other Nevada law firm with a physician on staff, much less a physician that also has a law degree,” said GGRM Managing Partner Toby Yurek. “With his outstanding medical experience and legal expertise, Dr. Anthony is uniquely qualified to help both our clients and our attorneys navigate medical issues, so nothing is missed in pursuing a personal injury or workers’ comp claim.”
Bringing on Dr. Anthony as our Chief Medical Officer will serve multiple purposes. He will ensure our workers’ compensation clients get fair and honest permanent partial disability ratings and serve as our medical director and medical advisor on issues, which will streamline our work. We will not have to go outside and seek another medical means because we’re going to trust our internal Doctor to advise us and tell us, “Yeah, that’s not going to be related,” or “this is related, you need to go fight for it.” He’ll be utilized by our workers’ compensation department and our personal injury department.
“Dr. Anthony is uniquely qualified to help both our clients and our attorneys navigate medical issues, so nothing is missed in pursuing a personal injury or workers’ comp claim.“
Toby stated, “We don’t want to fight for conditions, treatment, or benefits unrelated to our client’s claim.” We’ll now have the ability for Dr. Anthony to tell us the essential issues to fight for. This should shorten the case’s time by eliminating the delays of getting independent medical evaluations and focusing on getting the client’s treatment. Ultimately this means that the clients get better, faster recoveries, shorten their case time, and get back to work, which most clients want to do.
Dr. Anthony is known and respected on both sides of the fence. Both the defense and the claimant sides see him as a fair, honest, straight shooter who always conducts himself above board. Our firm and the insurance companies respect him to rate our clients mutually, and he is on almost every insurance list as a preferred rating physician.
Dr. Anthony will have an office and an actual exam room to prep clients. We want to have the clients go to their permanent partial disability examination to be worked up by Dr. Anthony to understand the process. We’re doing this to make the clients more relaxed and more prepared. They’ll feel at ease going into their actual examination because they’ve experienced what one feels like before they go.
“After practicing and teaching medicine for more than 36 years, I wanted to do something different and feel that incorporating my knowledge and experience to make the law work for GGRM’s clients is an interesting approach to taking care of patients in an entirely new way.”
The 5th edition AMA Guide to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment is critical, and Dr. Anthony’s skill and utilizing that text is vital because it’s the law in Nevada. The Nevada legislature commands all workers’ compensation injuries to be assessed against the fifth edition guide. You genuinely need to be a master of that guide to understand the disability ratings that people get through worker’s compensation.
Dr. Anthony received his BS and DO degrees from Ohio University, a JD from Florida State University, and an MBA from the University of Tennessee. He completed his internship at Riverside Hospital in Trenton, Michigan, and his residency in family medicine at Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital/Metro Health in Cleveland, Ohio. Following three years of post-graduate training, Dr. Anthony moved to Florida and practiced there until relocating to Nevada in 1996. Dr. Anthony is board certified in family medicine and has been since 1988.
Before joining GGRM, Dr. Anthony was Program Director for the Graduate Medical Education program at Valley Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas, where he obtained Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) status for their family medicine program.
“Understanding the underlying medical issues is paramount to a successful legal claim,” said Dr. Anthony. “After practicing and teaching medicine for more than 36 years, I wanted to do something different and feel that incorporating my knowledge and experience to make the law work for GGRM’s clients is an interesting approach to taking care of patients in an entirely new way.”
GGRM Managing Partner, Toby Yurek, said he came to trust his medical opinion, skill, and ability to conduct the permanent partial disability ratings because of his high ethical standards and unique ability to communicate effectively with patients as a person. A person that he truly cares about them and their recovery.
“He understands the claimant when they come in, and the depth of their medical files and how they relate to the fifth edition guides.” “His ethics are above reproach. He’s also a lawyer, and he’s governed by the ethics of being a doctor and the ethical edicts of being a lawyer,” said Jason Mills.
It’s those qualities that make him the perfect candidate to be GGRM’s CMO.