Medical records are the evidence needed to prove or defend a personal injury lawsuit. They are crucial in meeting or defending against the burden of proof required by law,  determining fault, negotiating fair settlements,  and calculating damages. For both, the medical record is the inevitable evidence. The type and extent of injury in the records can be vital in deciding the outcome of a lawsuit.

Our Process

• Fill out the Client Contact Form. Someone will respond as soon as possible – usually within 24 hours. Alternatively, you may schedule a virtual appointment through our website.
• We meet to discuss your case. You may not be ready to hire on first contact, so there is no pressure. The consultation is free.
• If you hire us, we will look at the records to provide an estimate of the time needed to complete the work. During the interview will gather detailed information about the format you want us to use. Some people are highly specific about this to include margins, fonts, and other details, and other clients leave the format to us.

• We send you a proposal and an estimate. If you accept the proposal, we draft a contract.
• After the project starts, services are billed monthly in 15-minute increments of an hour.
• Alternately, some projects may be billed at flat rates by prior arrangement.
• We ask that you provide us with a retainer fee to be held in escrow and replenished as needed. Any unused portion will be refunded at the completion of the project.
• As we work, we stay in contact with you to report progress, ask important questions that may arise, or convey unexpected case facts that we find in the records.

How Long Will It Take?

We encourage our clients to bring an LNC on board as soon in the life of a case as possible. On many occasions, attorneys need work done on an emergent basis. We do our best to accommodate your requests while remaining realistic about our capabilities as a small firm and our commitments to other clients. We cannot always accurately estimate exactly how long it will take to complete a given project. Each case is unique. If you have a limited budget, we can make realistic suggestions about prioritizing the work product or refer you to another firm with possibly a shorter turnaround time.  Many companies are turning toward AI to accomplish this task and are promising extremely short turnaround times. Currently, we do not use AI for our work products due to concerns about the newness of the technology and privacy.

Things That Can Slow Down Record Review

• We contact you with important questions about what we find in the records and do not receive a response. For example, we find that the statute of limitations tolls before we can complete the work. Most attorneys do a statute analysis to work up a case, but this would be one example of a critical question.

• Voluminous records – Some files are highly complex and exceed thousands of pages.
• Disorganized records from multiple sources.
• Multiple hospitalizations from the same source.
• Duplicate records.
• Blurred or illegible copies.
• Handwritten records.
• Records copied on both sides of the paper.
• Use of non-standard abbreviations can lead to confusion and delay. We try to decode these abbreviations based on their context and source type without guessing wildly. Some specialties use highly individualized abbreviations, acronyms, symbols, diagrams, and dose designations. Examples include optometry and ophthalmology, dental, chiropractic, and physical therapy records. There are “approved” abbreviations described by national-level organizations such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAHO). Still, under time pressure many specialty providers continue to use their own abbreviations unique to their practice setting, which may only be understandable to insiders. We rely upon our ample collection of reference texts, specialty contacts, and internet research to analyze these records accurately. Care will be taken without making wild guesses. When we cannot translate handwriting or abbreviations, we will state so in the chronology or summary.
• Handwritten records can also slow down the review process when they are illegible, and in those cases, we will specify that in our report. The jokes about doctor’s handwriting are sometimes based on reality.