Total Health Institute Lawsuit
So the case of THI poses questions concerning alternative health care practices in themselves. The account is indicated to portray the impact with which such a practice may pose for the welfare of the patient as well as its ethics for the practice concerning holistic health practices. The case filed by former patients of THI comes through a chain of several concerns: the case against different business practices, the efficiency in treatment, financial policies by the institute, and the regulatory oversight over its ends. Read along with us to get the idea a bit closer to the case and what it might mean for THI and other alternative health organizations and patients.
About Total Health Institute
Founded by Dr Keith Nemec, Total Health Institute runs as a holistic health center offering treatments to treat the “whole person” both by physical and emotional and spiritual means. In fact, Dr. Nemec is indeed a professional qualified in alternative medicine although he is no practicing medical doctor. Such has been one of the major controversial issues regarding the institute. THI market themselves as a healing center that gives patients non-conventional, holistic approaches of curative treatment of chronic diseases and strengthening health at large. For years though, THI has faced pressure. Most previous customers have come out asserting that they are victims of treatments that did not serve the expected purpose of the treatment. The company has made the organization undergo allegations of financial exploitation and advertisement lies.
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Claim Treatment on Efficiency
Indeed, to several criticisms of the case, it was that the treatments performed in THI were not health efficiencies at all. Clients claim to spend infinitely huge amounts of money for treatments with no signs of improvement in their health, or worse still, that their condition worsened into an even worse situation than before. Laura McDaniel is one of the few from the plaintiffs of THI, where she fraudulently claims to have spent two years without at least little attempt towards curing her chronic disease and spent all savings. Most of the patients claim they achieved that from the hands of a similar failure: lengthy protocols of treatment, costing thousands but yielding no measurable health outcome. And they said that the THI employees, some of those medical directors, told them that would be enough other treatments, and that they lied to them
Financial Exploitation claims
THI is financially exploitative. Almost a pat on the back, though, because this lawsuit exposed this stunning practice: patients were leaned on into those treatment programs that lasted months and thousands of dollars; some patients paid over $50,000. The critics continue with saying that THI victimized weak people-the helpless patients suffering from chronic conditions were going to embrace the untested method with an intention to recover. This, as the case puts it was treatments by THI towards patients were very business oriented instead of putting the patient into a healthy state.
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Deception Qualifications
Qualifications related to Dr. Nemec and people connected to him have been reviewed. He is an alternative medicine doctor, yet he doesn’t have any license to practice there. And that’s the proof that the care being dished out would not be based well. Another ex-patient even said he/she was never given this kind of segregation and one has since become skeptical about the openness of the institute and whether it even informed the patients of the limitations of the abilities of THI. It further hypothesizes that THI carries practices through its practitioners without licensure to conduct that increases the risk for patient safety and dented the confidence of the patients in the institution.
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Customer Service and Communication Issues
This case, other than the problem of effectiveness of treatment and other than exploitation on the economical point of view, puts failures that embrace poor customer service and communication problems on THI. The patients have complained that it is hard to get hold of the staff. Their answers seem to delay while at some point, they feel as if they are not put into consideration. All those patients of this health care agency, who suffer from severe or chronic diseases can be targeted there. There, communication is not an option. Non-response and delay due to active engagement work pressures on the patients. It has given bruised satisfactions of patients with having a very negative perception about the services delivered by THI.
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THI Action toward Litigation
Once the case is filed, THI publicly excoriates the charge and boasts of its step through description of its defense of the position it has taken and through the assertion that it really does care for its patients. For THI, the treatments are established to be used in ways other than conventional modes of health and healing practices, yet the treatments have merit and “work.”. It further states that all the treatments the institute has carried out had been agreed on with the well-informed patients. It adds further that all its medical personnel are trained and licensed to carry out particular treatments. THI has also carried out an internal review in its bid to be doing better practices. This is a change of policy, more and more training of staffs, and proper communication for the sake of increasing the patients’ mentality. But the critics labeled it as insufficient and that THI cannot even solve simple problems brought before it by its former patients.
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Effects on Total Health Institute’s Reputation
Actually, the litigation seriously damaged the reputation of THI. Such publicity reaching the public at large has tended to discredit the allegations made against the clients; hence, some have questioned the credibility of the institute. Definitely, A poor publicist would surely have affected the trust placed by old and new clients. In this regard, THI lost the client base as some of its former patients say they are disappointed and would change their behaviour in seeking treatment. Another motivating factor was to throw controversy off the institution; this did Dr. Nemec by renaming THI this time into “Revolution New Medicine” with a changed scope of services among which feature brain optimization and holistic healing. However, critics claim that this rebranding is a way for them to extricate themselves from this lawsuit for months since it will tackle the crucial issues that ensued in the lawsuit. Law Legal Stuffs¬¶
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Ethical and Regulatory Implications
The deeper ethical and regulatory implications of the THI case run much deeper than bottom line dollars alone.
The deregulation has increased if holistic health providers are allowed to operate with orders of magnitudes lesser regulations than the traditional medical institutions. Then, some checks would have to be removed from the safety and efficacy of treatment for the patients. The case had required enhanced regulation of alternate health practices in order to put an end to further exploitation and provision of health services from qualified personnel. LawJudicial
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Financial and Emotional Cost to Patients
Well, pretence of exploitation has been a great financial and emotional cost to most patients.
It is this case, to a great extent that makes the present patients who sink thousands of dollars uselessly on vain treatments dramatize their conditions. In most cases, the amount getting compensated is offset with distrust and betrayal. Lack of Money Further Continued with the Deterioration of Health that Ensues.
This case has, therefore led to psychological harm to the patients involved in the case and felt violated and vulnerable, and so the case needed ethics in healthcare and patient-centered care. My blog .
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Case History of Total Health Institute to Date
So far, the case of the Total Health Institute has not been solved, and it is still in court.
The case has been characterized by an unbroken hearing in court, motions pre-trial, and the testifying of the patients about the case. Many of the patients have settled, while others remain pending because they are fighting their claims in court. The outcome may be the only factor that will determine cases like THI and other alternate health cases hereafter. This sets precedence on how such cases will be handled hereafter. If this only happens to defeat the case in THI, then it would only call for strict regulation and high restriction of holistic health professionals just to pretend to protect the patients from further such episodes.
Conclusion
Litigation of Total Health Institute opened many eyes to the alternative health industry.
It also massively increased the risk issues related to unregulated practice where there would be the need for openness, accountability, and some ethics to the standards followed by the practitioners in health services. Indeed all such complaints about ineffective treatment, financial exploitation, and even presentation of qualification trace back to protection of the right of the patient to informed consent. Indeed, the cases instead led one’s mind to a much more critical scrutiny on the part of healthcare providers like very services in the field where oversight could be limited. This process of litigation will go a long way in informing future regulation actions and most probably reducing alternative as well as traditional health providers who overwhelmingly know ethics regarding patients’ safety and satisfaction.
