Why Reviewing Medical Summaries Can Be Difficult for Attorneys In many legal cases, medical information could be the key documents in determining the outcome of the case. This is especially true in medical malpractice suits and Social Security Disability cases, but these are far from the only areas where medical documents could influence, or even completely determine, how the case will go. Unfortunately, reviewing medical documentation is rarely an easy matter for attorneys.
Even attorneys who specialize in medical cases can not always have a complete knowledge of medicine, documenting software, specific terminology and every other aspect that goes into fully understanding these documents. Even though they have a solid grasp upon the areas of medical law in which they specialize, there are still many other factors that make it difficult to gather, understand or even obtain the proper medical documents. Patient-physician Privacy Laws The laws regarding medical privacy are the first roadblock in the way of many attorneys even obtaining the documents they would require. These laws can present particularly difficult problems when the patient is deceased, which is unfortunately often the case in malpractice suits. Without the help of a spouse, next of kin or appointed representative, even obtaining the documents can be nearly impossible.
Insufficient or Missing Information Once the attorney has dealt with the issues of gathering the documents, the next problem can be the information they contain. Since almost all medical facilities use electronic medical records (EMRs) now, this presents even more problems when the physicians or staff do not have a full understanding of the software being used. Many doctors and medical practitioners do not take the time to fully learn this software, and the information can be scrambled, omitted, too long or out of place. This problem usually presents itself in the form of blank spaces in the documents. The attorney has no way of knowing if a blank space means this section did not apply, the physician did not ask, the information is not relevant, or any of the other possible reasons why a section could be left blank. Additional Time and Resources Needed With all the moving parts and different tasks of a legal case, taking unnecessary time or spending additional resources on understanding difficult documents could present any number of other problems. It can slow down, stall or even regress an otherwise smooth case. For something that could easily be done by a qualified legal and medical summary company, these are completely unnecessary problems to have. Article source: https://blog.rebelmouse.com/why-reviewing-medical-summaries-can-be-difficult-forattorneys-2211271575.html