The major concerns attorneys who handle medical-legal cases have are retrieving the relevant medical records, reviewing them, and tussling with the associated administrative hassles. We have law offices calling us for an effective and flawless medical record retrieval and review solution. In fact, utilizing medical records services could be the best practical alternative for a busy law firm or attorney hard-pressed for time and other resources. Why outsource? Can’t the process be done in-house with dedicated staff? Surely it can be done. However, just having the resources is not enough. Technology needs constant updating, and the staff needs training from time to time to keep abreast with new developments and requirements. Attorneys and law firms can save the time and effort put into such activities by partnering with an outsourcing company providing record review services.
Our topic for this post is how you can leverage medical review services for comprehensive case evaluation. To get set, we first need to consider the challenges associated with record review, and then understand how an outsourcing solution could prove useful.
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Medical Record Review Challenges
Hundreds of Medical Records in Different Locations: Typically, medical records belonging to a patient may run to thousands of pages and include both personal medical information and comprehensive medical terminology. The medical records are updated on a regular basis, which adds to the volume of records. If an in-house team were to retrieve and review these records, it would be tedious and time-consuming. Moreover, the review must be done with extra care and accuracy because you just cannot afford errors. That is why using medical record retrieval services is advisable.
Unstructured Documents and Data: This is a huge challenge for your office because the records that reach you are mostly unorganized. They also arrive from various healthcare providers, pharmacies, hospitals, diagnostic centers and so on. The dates of arrival and times of arrival may also be different. Keeping a tab on all this could be difficult. Then, there is the issue of duplicate records, and irrelevant records not related to the particular injury or illness. Some of the records may be missing and you have to decide to obtain those. Other documents you need include medical bills and other records.
Difficult Medical Terms: Medical terms pertaining to different medical specialties may be difficult to understand. You need a certain amount of medical knowledge to decipher these expressions. It becomes much more difficult if the records are handwritten and illegible.
Lack of Descriptive Data in the EHR: Though the electronic record is convenient and allows for data backup, is legible and easily accessible, most EHRs lack narrative data or appropriate observations from the physicians. This makes it difficult for your legal team to properly understand the impact of the injury.
How Medical Review Services Can Be Effectively Used?
Now, let us consider how a provider of record review services can help with your comprehensive case evaluation.
The first step in a complete case evaluation of injury or illness cases is the review of medical records. You need to present the plaintiff’s or defendant’s story to the judge and jury. Evidence extracted from the relevant medical records is vital to build credibility and achieve a positive outcome. Outsourced medical services are provided by a team of experts who are familiar with handling all types of medical documentation. This makes the otherwise tough processes of organizing the records and extracting information easier. The support services you get include the following:
- Creating an accurate chronology of the medical events, which is valuable because it contains key facts of the case and makes it easy to locate the facts in the medical record.
- Analyzing the records in detail to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the case in connection with aspects such as causation and damages; liability; missing records; and inconsistencies in the records among others.
- Case evaluation to determine the legal feasibility of the case. If the record review reveals that the case has no merit, you can decide whether or not to accept the case. This will save you a lot of time and money.
Here is a list of solutions that may be included in an outsourced solution.
- Medical summary preparation
- Identifying treatment gaps
- Providing details regarding the relevance of past medical histories and co-morbidities
- Identifying potential deposition questions
- Preparing a pain and suffering analysis
As mentioned earlier, the lack of narrative data is a major concern. A good medical review team also provides medical scribing facility to transcribe the physicians’ notes into a legible format.
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Outsourced Medical Review Services Could Be a Gamechanger
There is no doubt that outsourcing the review requirements to a good provider will be immensely beneficial. These service providers have the latest in technologies including automation which makes even complex medical record processing effortless. You get to save enough time to focus on your law firm’s core processes. Once the review is done and the report prepared, you can have a clear understanding of the medical issues and will be able to handle any technical questions that may arise. Legal medical review services provide the facts you need to prove the extent of injury, causation and relatedness, medical necessity, and pre-existing conditions, if any. Professional reviewers will at once spot whether the certified copy of medical records is complete. They are knowledgeable regarding the functioning of the medical system and know that certain things have to be documented. They will check to see whether complete documentation associated with a particular event is available. All these enhance the efficiency of the review process.
Leveraging professional record review services will help you with easy and effortless retrieval and review of your records. They will expedite the entire process by utilizing the best technological and strategic solutions and enable you to provide the best results for your clients.
