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Affidavit of service expert witnesses may testify and write reports on service of process, legal notice, and related topics. The National Association of Professional Process Servers reports on their website:

Proposed Maryland Legislation Harmful To People and Threatens Legal Due Process

The National Association of Professional Process Servers (NAPPS), along with the Mid-Atlantic Association of Professional Process Servers (MAAPPS), have grave concerns about pending legislation that establishes rules that allow for people to be served legal documents by mail rather than in person.

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Health care administration expert witnesses may write reports and opine on rehabilitation centers, managed care organizations, medical record review, and related topics. Here, Federal News Daily reports that Tricare, the health care program serving uniformed service members, retirees and their families worldwide has few options for increasing access to civilian providers.

Tricare Management Activity is severely limited in what it can do to expand beneficiaries’ access to civilian health care providers, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office. In addition to national shortages, Tricare beneficiaries’ access also may be impeded in certain locations where there are insufficient numbers and types of civilian providers to cover the local demand.

Providers are generally leery of accepting Tricare patients because of the Tricare fee structure. Providers’ concern about Tricare’s reimbursement rates – which generally are set at Medicare rates – continues as a long-standing issue, according to the report, released June 2. The fee schedule has more recently been cited as the primary reason civilian providers will not accept Tricare Standard and Extra beneficiaries as patients, according to TMA’s surveys of civilian providers.

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Insurance claims expert witnesses may write reports and testify on property insurance, insurance regulations, and related topics. Recently, Business Insurance reported:

Japanese insurers have paid almost $2.27 billion to cover approximately 125,000 claims associated with earthquake damage to personal dwellings stemming from the March 11 tsunami and earthquake that devastated Japan. According to the General Insurance Association of Japan (GIAJ), the number of claims is expected to increase as efforts continue to restore heavily damaged areas of the country.

Coverage for dwelling claims, which have accounted for a large portion of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami-related claims thus far, are reinsured exclusively by the Japanese government. For this reason, foreign reinsurers will experience little if any exposure to these particular claims. The total insured property losses from the Japan earthquake and tsunami have so far been estimated at between $18 billion and $26 billion.

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Process service expert witnesses may opine on acceptance of service, affidavit of service, jurats, judicial summons, and more. The National Association of Professional Process Servers reports on their website that New York process servers were granted a partial restraining order on a new law:

The New York State Professional Process Servers Association (NYSPPSA) was granted a partial restraining order on March 21 to allow the Association and the City of New York to continue negotiations over new regulations for professional process servers within the city limits.

The association and its members remain hopeful that differences can be resolved amicably and to the satisfaction of all parties. Prior to the court filing, NYSPPSA and the City of New York had been negotiating in good faith and were making progress ahead of a March 21 deadline. NYSPPSA chose court action only after a request to extend that deadline was denied. In the event the matter cannot be resolved satisfactorily, further court proceedings were set for April 27.

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Trucking expert witnesses may write reports and testify on federal motor carrier safety regulations, truck maintenance, trucking and transportation rules, and related topics. Transport Topics reports that American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have together written to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asking the agency to begin researching how standards for crashworthiness for heavy trucks could benefit professional truck drivers.

“NHTSA has continuously developed crashworthiness standards for automobiles and light trucks, but to date has generally not applied crashworthiness standards to commercial trucks,” the two groups wrote to NHTSA chief David Strickland this week.

Read more: ttnews.com.

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Commercial design expert witnesses may write reports and testify on interior designs, space planning, green retrofits, and more. Here, BuildingDesign+Construction.com writes:

The U.S. Department of Energy announced in May the release of the first in a new series of Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs) to aid architects and engineers in the design of highly energy-efficient office buildings. The 50% AEDG series will provide a practical approach to commercial buildings designed to achieve 50% energy savings compared to the commercial building energy code used in many areas of the country. This 50% AEDG for Small and Medium Office Buildings is the first in a series of four to be released in the coming months. These commercial building guides support President Obama’s goal to reduce energy use in commercial buildings 20% by 2020 and will help drive demand for energy-saving products made in the United States.

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A state review of the historic Tumwater brewhouse property found that some ground on the old Olympia Brewery site is contaminated beyond levels allowed for its mixed-use zoning. George Heidgerken, an owner of the property, has applied for a voluntary program to clean up the contaminants, which include lead and arsenic, said Scott Rose, a unit manager for the Washington State Department of Ecology. Heidgerken said he has hired an environmental expert and that he wanted to rid the site of contaminants.

Read more: http://www.theolympian.com.

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Sales forecasting expert witnesses may testify on sales promotions, retail sales, sales revenues and more. Referenceforbusiness.com describes QUALITATIVE FORECASTING METHODS.

Qualitative forecasting techniques generally employ the judgment of experts in the appropriate field to generate forecasts. A key advantage of these procedures is that they can be applied in situations where historical data are simply not available. Moreover, even when historical data are available, significant changes in environmental conditions affecting the relevant time series may make the use of past data irrelevant and questionable in forecasting future values of the time series.

Read more: Forecasting http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Fa-For/Forecasting.html#ixzz1OXPlUsZp

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Health care administration expert witnesses may opine on medical record administrators, health information managers, health services managers, and more. On its website, the American Health Information Management Association offers this information on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which fast tracked the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs).

Ensuring patient information is protected and secure from any intrusion is a priority in health care. It is crucial for organizations to understand and implement the privacy and security controls needed to access health information while ensuring patient privacy. According to Healthcare IT, healthcare experts have identified the top seven trends in health information privacy for 2011.

1. Health information exchanges, many of which will be launched by inexperienced and understaffed organization

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Interior design expert witnesses may opine on residential designs, furnishings, and commercial designs. BuildingDesign+Construction.com writes:

Hospitals are noisier than ever. Worldwide, sound levels inside hospitals average 72 decibels during the day and 60 decibels at night, which far exceeds the standard of 40 decibels or less, set by the World Health Organization. Studies find that the clamor of modern medicine can harm both patients and staff. Unwanted sound wrecks sleep, raises stress levels, induces medical mistakes, and contributes to alarm fatigue, which occurs when monitors shriek so often they are ignored or turned off, causing safety issues.

In response, hospitals throughout Illinois and the U.S. are launching “quiet campaigns” that include eliminating intercom paging, replacing metal trash cans, installing sound-absorbing flooring and paneling, and dimming lights at night to remind staff to keep their voices down.

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