A legal nurse consultant (LNC) is a valuable team member for an attorney in medical malpractice and other types of litigation that depends heavily on medical records. A value-added service for busy litigators, medical record review for attorneys is provided by experienced legal nurse consultants and medical review firms to ensure accurate and superior quality reviews. Since they have insider knowledge obtained from many years’ experience in the medical community, they can help attorneys understand even complicated medical aspects of the cases they handle. Their service is invaluable to insurance companies, healthcare organizations, private corporations, and government agencies. Legal nurse consultants occasionally work by themselves or prefer to obtain the support of a medical record review company to review medical documentation.
A major and often tedious task in the medical review process is the detailed analysis of the medical documentation. The LNC would
- Perform a comprehensive review that would reveal tampering in the medical records, if any
- Evaluate the medical information
- Provide assistance with demonstrative evidence
- Offer professional opinions related to causation of injuries and evaluation of damages to the claimants
- Easily recognize errors and omissions in the patient charts because of their long term experience in patient charting.
The legal nurse consultant helps attorneys understand complex medical concerns relevant to their cases; they can even educate attorneys on a range of issues from standards of care to administrative practices. Their assistance is provided also in reviewing cases for merit, interpreting medical records, and preparing for depositions, trials, review panels, mediation hearings and arbitrations. With their assistance, attorneys can clearly explain medical terminology that may otherwise confuse the judge and jurors.
The following duties of LNCs are made less burdensome with reliable medical record review services.
- Organize, review and interpret the medical records and other documents to help the attorney understand the case quickly.
- Prepare accurate medical chronologies of the medical events.
- Identify tampered records and missing medical records.
- Review medical malpractice and personal injury cases for merit.
- Identify compliance to and deviations from accepted standards of care.
- Identify causation, evaluate injury/damage and determine contributing factors.
- Prepare written reports for the attorney
Attorneys practicing in the areas of medical malpractice, personal injury, product liability, workers’ compensation, criminal and toxic tort cases will find these services very helpful.
