Personal injury and clinical negligence defence and plaintiff attorneys can both benefit from the assistance of a medical records collation service offered by an independent legal expert.
There are a number of ways in which a legal firm’s handling of clinical negligence and personal injury compensation cases could benefit from this type of autonomy.
Solicitors and fee earners may need an independent agency to perform the necessary collation and/or analysis of medical records since they simply do not have the time to do so themselves.
Reviewing and analysing medical records data is typically a crucial part of personal injury and clinical negligence cases. There are a number of critical issues that must be isolated from the medical records, such as:
The problem of constraints. This is crucial information. There is a strict time limit of three years from the date of the damage or the date the claimant knew or ought to have known the disease was caused by the Defendant’s carelessness. Checking the Claimant’s records for the “date of knowledge” in disease cases and the “date of harm” in accident claims is necessary to guarantee that legal procedures have been launched in a timely manner.
The specifics of the injury being claimed. Another major concern is this. It will be necessary to review the claimant’s medical history to ascertain whether or not they had previously suffered the same or similar injury, both before and after the date of the injury being claimed in the litigation. The medical expert should make some note of this in their report. For instance, if the claimant is asserting that he had a back injury as the result of a work-related accident, the collating medical records will need to weigh in on whether or not the claimant’s history of back ailments would have any bearing on the current injury.
What kinds of wounds have been sustained otherwise. It is important to examine the claimant’s previous and potential future loss of earnings while evaluating the claim, so evidence of any other injuries that may have contributed to a distinct impairment should be provided.
The manner in which the harm was recorded in the patient’s medical records. It is possible that a description of how the injury occurred that is included in the patient’s medical records will be an essential piece of evidence in court. Due to the fact that it was not drafted with the purpose of being used in a legal proceeding, the court places a significant amount of weight on the description that was placed into the records. Therefore, it is extremely important to verify the claimant’s description of the accident with any medical or surgical notes that were kept by the treating physician or hospital.
If there are any missing medical records. You can’t tell if the set of records you have from the doctor or the hospital is complete or if you need to get another set from another collating medical records unless you go over each record carefully. Some aspects of a claimant’s medical history, such as requesting copies of the Claimant’s private hospital records in addition to those attended at an NHS clinic, are often forgotten.
