Missing medical records are a real problem for lawyers handling medical litigation. Untrained paralegals and other legal office staff entrusted with the responsibility of organizing medical records may not be able to identify that some vital records are missing. For a starter, you need to identify every single healthcare provider that has offered services. Then comes the important task of deciding what medical records to request. The information required includes the names of physicians, the complaint, dates of service, tests ordered, medications and treatment outcome. Contact information including names, addresses and phone numbers are to be collected.
- Legal professionals very often end up collecting irrelevant records as well while missing out on records that contain pertinent data. Unavailability of required information has a negative impact on case preparation, possibly leaving the lawyer confused and at a loss. It requires a trained eye to easily identify important records that are not there.
- The services of a competent medical review company will prove helpful, ensuring valuable savings both in terms of time and labor. Efficient medical review services include careful comparison of the available medical records with the medical history of the patient. Professional medical record reviewers will list all the missing records and make arrangements to collect them from the respective providers. The advantage is that you will be able to work with a complete set of medical records.
Professionalism to the Rescue
A professional, standard review of the medical records will capture relevant details such as provider name, date and time of service, consequent appointments and more from submitted documents as well as undocumented though referenced providers. A major advantage of having a professional team handling your medical record review is that they will know what records to look for – such as admission notes, discharge summaries, history and physical notes, ER notes, physician orders, physician progress notes, nurses’ notes, operative records, as well as individual department records, any of which may easily escape a legal professional not familiar with the medical scenario.
Therefore, in a nutshell, medical review services are definitely the best option when dealing with medical record analysis and review. With efficient support and an eye for detail, seasoned medical reviewers will ensure that no vital medical record goes missing.
