In-depth Comparison of Outsourcing Medical Record Review Services with In-House Reviewing!

A lawyer’s job is quite challenging. First, they must conduct in-depth case research. This can be time-consuming, especially when it comes to medical reviewing records. These records cover deep analysis of the medical history of patients, including information regarding treatments, tests, etc. This information is immensely important for lawyers, as it enables them to understand the case profoundly. In addition, lawyers must comply with multiple legal laws and prepare for trial. All of these tasks can be stressful and demanding, but they are essential for ensuring that justice is served.

Defining Reviewing of Medical Records & Analysis

Medical record review and analysis is nothing but evaluating the patient’s healthcare information. For this, a lawyer finds, reviews, interprets, and analyzes the facts and figures mentioned in a medical record. Medical record analysis and review services are ideal for lawyers, legal nurse consultants, medico-legal case review firms, insurance staff, and plaintiffs.

The Medical Record Review and Analysis Process Includes the following:

• Collecting and arranging medical records
• Finding out about misplaced records
• Discussing with healthcare providers
• Recognizing aspects that lead to alleged injuries or damages
• Making summarized written reports
• Assessing and comparing reports of the witnesses
• Making events’ chronology

Importance of  Reviewing  Medical Records for Lawyers

Reviewing medical records is crucial for lawyers involved in product liability/personal injury cases.  Since it helps them understand the case details and prepare for the trial. Now, there are two ways to do this: either law firms can do it in-house or outsource it to experts. Let’s discuss both methods in detail below.

Medical Record Review: In-House vs. Outsource

In-House Reviewing of Medical Record 

In this, the in-house team of a law firm records, collects, and processes the medical records.

Associated Pros

• Greater Access: It is easy to communicate with an in-house team, discuss problems and look for solutions in terms of medical record and review.
• Better Control: With an in-house medical record review team, your employees are accountable to you, making them more responsive. This means you can control their efforts and time in a better way.
• Best Use of Resources: If a law firm has already invested in its medical record team, it can make the best use of its resources without incurring any additional cost.

Associated Cons

• Outdated Approach: Every law firm’s aim is to prepare for trial better without stressing over medical records. Lawyers have little to no time in researching the best practices or technology to speed up the process. As a result, most of law firms still rely on the outdated approach of collecting information in person, sending faxes for collecting information, and more.
• Lack of Skills: Most of the paralegals and other staff of law firms do not have the right skills and knowledge to understand the complexities involved in medical records, standard medical practices, and medical terminology.
• Time-Consuming: Since medical records are in huge volume, it becomes time-consuming, leading to delays in trial preparation.
• Unwanted Expense: Law firms need not have a fully functional medical record review team since it comes with unwanted expenses of hiring a paralegal staff to collect and abstract records, monitor and review them, provide additional benefits like insurance, paid leaves, etc., along with investing in infrastructure and technology from time to time.

Outsourcing Medical Record Reviewing can Prove to be Beneficial

In this, a team of outsourcing experts records, collects, and processes the medical records on your behalf.

Associated Pros

• Skilled & Experienced Team: The team of outsourcing experts is highly skilled and experienced. The providers of outsourcing litigation services employ individuals who have a previous history of working with medical institutions and are familiar with medical terminology. Also, they have vast experience in handling multiple cases of similar types and hold great expertise in the same.
• Time-Saving: When such a highly skilled and experienced medical record review team looks after your project, it will help in saving time, speeding up the process, and your trial preparation eventually.
• Cost-Saving: You get to save considerably on the salaries, perks, and other benefits of your medical record review team, along with eliminating costs associated with investing in infrastructure and technology.
• Enhanced Efficiency: The outsourcing specialists are familiar with the complexities involved around medical records/terminology and interpret them in an easy-to-understand language. This helps enhance the efficiency of lawyers in getting prepared for the trial.
• Better Organizational Skills: Due to the huge experience of the outsourcing experts, they know exactly how to arrange the relevant and important information in a chronological format, along with providing links to the original information source.
• Uncovers Missing Information Easily: Most of medical records have missing information, and it is extremely tough for legal firms to understand the missing information and its relevance to the case. Outsourcing experts are aware of the same due to their industry knowledge and quickly obtain the missing information from the patient or healthcare organization.
• Enhanced Data Security: Data security of medical records is crucial, along with keeping compliance with HIPAA considerations. Top providers of litigation support services have one of the best data security infrastructures and robust tools/protocols for data confidentiality and data security, ensuring unmatched data security.
• Complete Transparency: Outsourcing experts provide you with complete transparency of prices and estimated time needed for the completion of a project by indexing the medical records in the first place itself.
• Multiple Expertise: The team of outsourcing experts is capable of handling medical records for various types of cases like medical negligence/malpractice, personal injury, disability, workers’ compensation, product liability, mass tort, and class actions.

Associated Cons

• Inflexibility: Small outsourcing firms that have few experts at hand fail to provide flexibility in their services. This is because lawyers cannot handle multiple projects in one-go and ensure delivering customized solutions. However, this is not the case with outsourcing firms. Since they have a lot of experts to handle client projects and can cater to the individual needs of every client.
• No Physical Access/Control: Outsourcing means no physical access to the team and controls as you can have over in-house employees. However, outsourcing firms provide round-the-clock support to their clients. They can convey their concerns to their project managers instantly and get things sorted out at the earliest.

Conclusion

In-house and outsourcing medical record reviewing have their own pros and cons. However, if we compare the two, then surely the outsourcing option emerges at the top. This is because it helps lawyers save on cost and time. Moreover, you get an extended expert team, helping you with trial preparation efficiently.

If you are looking for a reliable firm to manage your medical record review process, you can partner with Cogneesol. We are a 13 -year old outsourcing firm providing unmatched litigation support services to multiple lawyers and law firms worldwide. Start your free trial by getting in touch today!

Also Read: Can Outsourcing Litigation Support Help Your Law Firm?