Did you know that McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case is an infamous personal injury claim in the world that was awarded $2.86 million for punitive damages over a spilled cup of coffee?
Back in 1994 at Albuquerque, a 74-year-old woman suffered third-degree burns on her lap from a spilled cup of coffee that was dangerously hot. McDonald’s strongly believed that it would win the case. However, the jury regarded the objective medical evidence and the corporate negligence towards her injury and ruled their verdict favoring the older woman.
This case was considered frivolous litigation by some as it conflicted with a judicially noticeable fact and stated no relevant law.
For an attorney dealing with personal injury cases, it is essential to rely on medical records as their major part of the evidence exhibit. Medical records are the collection of patients’ documents detailing their medical history, clinical findings, diagnostic tests, pre and post-operative care, medications, recovery progress. This record helps the attorney to gain enough knowledge on the patient’s medical history and treatments with accurate medical chronology. Unfortunately, it will be a quite time-consuming process for the attorney to work through complex medical aspects and understand the medical terms. Especially in high-profile cases, the last thing an attorney need is to evaluate and correlate the medical terms with the personal injury case.
Luckily, these extensible manual hours can be easily shortened with the help of medical record review service. Companies offer medical records review professionals who convert voluminous data into readable meticulous summarization, sorted chronologically.
This availability enables both the attorneys and medical professionals to focus more on their core responsibilities rather than spending time studying huge data.
Medical Record Review – A Stringent Process
Unlike the traditional bookkeeping and storage rack style which consumes space, opting to outsource medical record review will save both time and space.
If you wonder why? Below is the explanation.
As the title mentions, medical record review is a stringent process that includes:
Evaluating, Interpreting, And Organizing Medical Records
Medical records of various specialties should be sorted and organized based on doctor notes and treatments.
Validating An Accurate Medical Chronology/ Timeline
Categorize the medical records based on proper medical chronology—from the time of injury to discharge will provide the sequential medical event.
Medical Case Summaries
Medical case summary serves to understand the impact of the injury, treatments, diagnoses, hospital stay,etc.
Identifying Medical Records
Medical records lost along the transfer or relocation must be identified and categorized to maintain accurate records.
As this in-house review process is overwhelming and needs hours of manual input, organizing accurate record data will be hard to comprehend at times. This limited and defective record will create complications and make the attorneys lose the trial.
But when outsourced, this can be easily controlled. With dedicated medical experts and digitization techniques, companies like PreludeSys reform huge data into precise and simple summarization with accurate medical details.
Why Are Accurate Reviews Of Medical Records Important?
Accurate and up-to-date medical records review enable doctors to bypass repetitive queries to patients, start timely treatment and avoid the risk of errors at all costs. For attorneys, it helps to extract the strengths and weaknesses of the case at a glance.
Below are a few benefits that can be acquired from an accurate medical records review
Quality Patient Experience
Doctors and practitioners maintain patient notes primarily for their understanding and continued treatment for future visits. A detailed medical chart is helpful for any specialists to take over the treatment of a patient without having to go through fundamental questions and tests that could waste a patient’s valuable time of diagnosis/treatment.
For example, we might not know how a tiny footnote of a doctor’s observation could help identify patients’ risk areas of illness and offer timely treatments.
Improved Day-To-Day Operations
The sheer complexity of voluminous medical records is challenging for anyone to extract essential medical data. A systematic organization of medical records and reviews is vital for both medical and non-medical professionals like lawyers for quick access.
Furthermore, excellent organized medical records enable medical staff to handle fluid daily functioning without a hitch. Accurate medical records review enables
- Attorney to present the best medical evidence,
- Hospital staff to access medical records quickly and
- Communicate effectively among various specialists.
Quick Access To Medical History
Hospitals are thoroughly embracing the emerging medical technology like Electronic Medical Records(EMR) that makes it much easier and efficient for doctors to quickly glance through a patient’s records review and continue the medical care.
An accurate extract of medical history can implement improved communication
- By avoiding repetitive queries and
- Provide timely treatment.
Protect Medical Professionals From Lawsuits
Accurate medical records review protects doctors and medical organizations from disputes on treatment options, liability issues, and medical lawsuits. For example, when questioned on wrongful insurance claims or medical lawsuits, the healthcare organization can provide accurate documents on time.
In addition, the attorneys representing the patient or the healthcare provider access the review of the medical records as a piece of factual medical evidence. Having accurate medical records will help attorneys to to protects doctors from lawsuits.
Quality Control
Medical records review and analysis are of immense help in deducing the lack of proper medical care and evaluate patient management issues. Moreover, unclear, missing, or duplicate medical records hinder the medical care of a patient. A medical data service provider can identify these inconsistencies and update the medical records to achieve100% accuracy.
Medical records review reveal,
- If a patient is getting quality care or
- Any mistakes in care and
- Potential room for medical care improvement.
The Bottom Line
Medical records reviews should be accurate and detailed enough for the attorneys and paralegals to understand the medical concept of the injury and prepare for the trial. Any lack of detail or inaccuracy will result in legal and financial implications. Thus, healthcare organizations should maintain authentic and easily accessible record details to avoid conflicts.
For patients, it can help them reduce the cost of repeated or unwanted medical tests, thus reducing the overall healthcare expenses. Outsourcing the medical record review to an expert company like PreludeSys can make your review process simple, efficient, and time-effective. With a team of skilled and experienced medical experts, we organize medical records accurately and provide detailed records review with enhanced data security.
We make sure to provide medical records review in a chronological format along with links to the original source, which makes your search easy and quick.
Reach our professionals to learn more about the medical record review services.
