You know that medical record review for attorneys is a necessary service to gather all records pertaining to a health related case. However, the first step medical record retrieval is also a very crucial one that is to be taken care of fastidiously. Even though this is something that can be done in-house or outsourced sometimes it is worth looking in to what works better.
To understand why outsourced record retrieval services is the better alternative than in-house processes, we need to examine the situation when the law firm employs its own staff to acquire the medical records. This strategy poses quite a few challenges.
- Large volume of medical records: This can be too much to handle even if you recruit extra staff to help. Each medical record will involve initial contact with the provider, and a number of follow-up calls.
- Tracking the status of the record requests: Status tracking is a tedious process, and often you may find that hardly any information is available. You may have to make repeated calls to the provider.
- Issues with accounting: Managing payments would become burdensome; it would become necessary to cut checks for individual invoices to each provider before the medical record release.
- Loss of valuable time: Since many record requests would remain pending, you will lose a lot of valuable time.
To address the challenges posed by manual record retrieval process, you could consider automated medical record retrieval. Ask yourself the following questions when planning for automation.
- Can your existing office staff quickly retrieve the necessary medical records? If your law firm is involved in pharmaceutical/product liability/mass tort litigation, it is very likely you have to handle large amounts of medical records from multiple clients. This means you need more staff to request, follow up on and process medical records. An electronic retrieval and management system will help you employ fewer people and also save space and time.
- Are you receiving the records you ordered within quick turnaround time? If not, it can pose serious problems. Automated record retrieval would help to shorten the long-drawn out process of obtaining the medical documents.
- Is space insufficient in your law office? If you have shortage of office space, automation can help with no need to maintain paper copies of medical records. This has become a necessary step with paperless offices becoming essential to ensure efficiency of law practices. You can save both space and time by maintaining electronically scanned client files, including medical records.
Outsourcing medical records retrieval would be a cost-effective alternative to in-housing the process. Law firms utilizing accurate, timely and professional medical record retrieval services experience improved productivity and a positive impact on their cases whether mass tort, malpractice or product liability among others. The service is provided by a highly experienced, knowledgeable workforce that can easily identify whether the medical chart is complete and if any information is missing. They can communicate well with hospital administrators, doctors and plaintiffs with authority, understanding, ease and compassion. With such kind of support, law firms and their office staff can save time and money that could be spent on more pressing legal matters.
