How Medical Records Chart Analysis Supports Legal Arguments

When it comes to developing a robust legal strategy, medical records chart analysis is essential. A company providing medical review solutions will carefully analyze the medical records to extract key information that could impact the outcome of the case. Chart review is particularly important in cases involving personal injury, medical malpractice, workers’ compensation and product liability. It helps reveal the connections between medical facts and legal arguments. The advantage of having a professional medical record review team perform the review is that they can change the difficult medical data into clear evidence.

Medical Records Review to Build a Strong Legal Strategy

A detailed review of medical records provides details such as medical history, treatment history, medications administered, treatment outcome and so on. This helps evaluate the impact of the injury or illness, and the resultant liability and damages. Experts reviewing the records can easily identify inconsistencies, discrepancies, omissions and other aspects that can support the plaintiff’s claims or weaken the defence’s arguments.

Here is a detailed projection of the different ways in which medical record review assists legal professionals.

• Establishing medical history: The medical records help create a timeline of the patient’s medical history, showing any previous conditions and treatments,
• Establishing causation: Data from the records help link the injuries to specific incidents such as medical negligence and accidents. It enables attorneys to ascertain whether the injury or illness was pre-existing, or whether it resulted from the event in question.
• Proving liability: Information obtained from chart analysis helps understand deviations from the standard of care, and thereby establish medical malpractice. Medical records and their review can reveal the extent of harm caused by another party’s actions.
• Establishing the standard of care: The review also helps determine whether the providers adhered to the accepted standards of care. When there is evidence of deviations from standard practices, it helps strengthen claims of negligence. Moreover, comparing records from cases of a similar nature helps establish norms and expectations in medical practice. When records from over a period of time are reviewed, you can identify patterns related to the appropriateness or quality of care provided.
• Calculating damages: From the information regarding the medical procedures and care provided to the patient, you can calculate the damages involved. Apart from this, the documentation can also help evaluate the extent of physical and emotional pain and suffering.
• Enables consistency checking: Record review will help disclose inconsistencies between a claimant’s statements and the actual medical history. The medical documentation can also support or weaken witness credibility, including that of healthcare professionals.
• Check for legal compliance: Medical record review also helps demonstrate compliance with legal and ethical standards in medical practice. This is very important with regard to defending medical malpractice cases.
• Determining whether the patient complied with the treatment prescribed: You can find out whether the patient followed the prescribed treatment. In cases involving malpractice, any non-compliance on the patient’s part will mitigate a provider’s responsibility
• Establish informed consent: Signed consent forms can be used to prove that the patient was informed properly of the treatment and its outcomes.
• Supports settlement negotiations: The review helps understand the strengths and weaknesses of the case based on the documentation. This will help develop informed settlement strategies.

A comprehensive review of medical records can effectively support your legal arguments and help identify new possibilities. The data gathered from the records enables attorneys to strengthen their cases and contest opposing arguments, and ultimately obtain favorable outcomes for their clients. Companies providing medical review solutions can assist attorneys with their expertise, advanced technology and best practices to improve the medical record review process. This in turn enhances the legal strategies adopted by attorneys and works to secure positive outcomes in the courtroom.