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Originally Posted On: https://mdtimelines.com/2022/06/the-top-7-benefits-of-medical-chronology/

 

When arguing a case in court, all medical documents need to be in chronological order. Read about the benefits of a chronology for medical cases here.

A recent study found that attorneys spend only 28% of their day working on billable tasks.

Plaintiff’s attorneys strive to spend as much time as possible directly working on their client’s cases. As an attorney, you want to do everything you can to streamline processes, save time and money, and serve your clients.

One of the most important tools you should be using? Medical records chronology.

Keep reading to learn more about the top benefits of medical chronology and how these reports can help you and your clients.

1. Easy to Identify Important Information

Going through medical records is tedious, redundant, and oftentimes just confusing. It shouldn’t be difficult to locate important basic information in a medical record, but sometimes it is.

Medical records chronology makes it easy for attorneys, staff, insurance companies, judges, and jurors to find the information they are looking for quickly and easily.

This information might include the type of record, the date of treatment, and the provider. Medical chronology makes identifying this information simple.

2. Easy to Read

Along the same lines, medical records chronology reports are designed to be easily read. This is highly beneficial for plaintiff’s attorneys, who have to translate often complex medical information into language that lay people can understand.

When you hire a medical case chronology service, they do this difficult task for you.

Chronology reports can be easily read and understood by a wide audience. They can help your audience understand the nature of the injury, what treatment was received, and whether it was appropriate and necessary.

3. Clarifies the Sequence of Events

One of the most important aspects of personal injury, medical malpractice, and workers comp cases is the ability to prove cause and effect. This often comes down to medical records.

What happened and when? The order of medical events is critical to personal injury cases. Insurance companies or jurors need a clear picture of what injury occurred, what treatments were done, and when.

Medical records that paint a clear picture of what injury was sustained, how it happened, and what treatment was necessary are critical to winning your case. Medical evaluation plays an especially important role in cases involving a permanent impairment or loss of use.

Insurance companies are notorious for trying to create holes in plaintiff’s cases by misrepresenting medical records. You want to be prepared and ensure your ducks are in a row, so to speak, by providing a clear and concise medical report that doesn’t leave room for misinterpretation.

Medical chronology prevents insurance companies from cherry-picking medical records to devalue your case.

4. Strengthens Your Case

Medical records correspond with medical bills to prove economic damages and stand on their own to prove non-economic damages like pain and suffering. Non-economic damages are harder to quantify, and medical records chronology can help insurance companies and jurors understand the impact extensive treatment had on your client’s mental health and quality of life.

Chronology reports for medical cases highlight pertinent information without overwhelming readers with information that they don’t need. The medical report will allow you to accurately access the validity and value of a case as well as help you identify your strongest points.

5. Information is Readily Available

One of the biggest drawbacks when dealing with medical records is how difficult it can be to find information. When you need a quick answer to a question or need to pull something up quickly, it’s not going to happen.

Even the most organized attorneys will waste time searching through stacks of paper or pages and pages of electronic documents.

With medical chronology, the information you need is just a click away, right at your fingertips. If you need to know what happened at a specific appointment, you can find that information instantly.

6. Save Time

When you and your staff aren’t bogged down by hundreds of pages of medical records, your time can be better spent. As they say, time is money.

Time spent combing through medical records is wasted time when you can hire an expert to efficiently and affordably do the job. When your time is freed up, you can spend it focusing on what you do best. You and your staff can spend more time serving your current clients and consulting with future clients.

Ultimately, you can help more people.

Once a medical chronology report is prepared, you can use it at every stage of your case. Besides time, you can also save money and space by not having to obtain and store large quantities of physical documents.

7. Avoid Mistakes

As a plaintiff’s attorney, you want to do right by your client. After all, they’ve entrusted you with their case in what is likely one of the most vulnerable times in their life. You must do everything you can to give them the representation they deserve.

But no one is perfect. You know the law, but you aren’t a doctor. What if you miss something?

Obtaining a medical chronology report can give you peace of mind and help you avoid costly mistakes. Your report will highlight any missing records, irrelevant records, or red flags that you need to be aware of.

Do You Want to Learn More About Medical Chronology?

Are you tired of staring at hundreds of pages of medical records trying to make sense of them? Is your staff tired of struggling to find basic information in a sea of paper?

Medical records review is one of the most important and the most frustrating parts of building medical cases. You don’t have to do it all yourself.

Medical chronology helps your team and your clients get the most out of your cases.

Click here to contact us today to learn more about how medical records chronology can help you and your clients.