How a Record Retrieval Service Can Support Legal Entities

Medical information is crucial for insurers, law firms, and workers’ compensation organizations looking to underwrite policies, build strong cases, and authenticate claims. Collecting medical data is highly challenging as well as time and labor intensive, and weighs down on in-house staff. Moreover, the resources can be implemented only at considerable cost. In the legal sector, many attorneys utilize the service of a medical record retrieval vendor to obtain the records needed in keeping with the state law. This will help in securing the information required in a timely and efficient manner, whether one needs a vendor at the beginning of discovery or at the tail end of discovery.

Overview of Document Retrieval Services

• Preparing the necessary legal documents required to subpoena the requested information. Copies of this information will be provided to all concerned parties, if required.
• To make the entire retrieval and management process efficient and easy, many service providers have the capability to make the information available on digital platforms. They allow clients to place orders online via individual accounts, following which clients can easily track the order status as well as follow-up on earlier orders just with the click of a mouse.
• Technology has advanced considerably, so that now the requested documents can be scanned on the location premises and uploaded directly to servers. This ensures speedy turnaround for the client.
• Another significant development is the introduction of document sharing software that enables easy access to, and sharing of the medical records anywhere in the world.

A Real Life Scenario

Consider a law firm that handles a number of mass tort cases. Often, the internal document retrieval process may prove to be very stressful and result in loss of overall productivity. Here are some of the major challenges such a client may face.

• Overwhelming volume of medical records involved. The task may become literally unmanageable with the necessity for tracking down the right contact information, establishing initial contact with the healthcare provider and numerous follow up calls.
• Difficulty in tracking the status of the records request. Typically, information may not be available in one space and each provider may have to be contacted at the cost of valuable time and effort.
• Turnaround time will suffer when timely access to the required information is not possible.

This law firm can opt for a web-based record retrieval solution to benefit from speed, cost-effectiveness and efficiency among other advantages. Thousands of requests can be handled each month via a powerful web interface, more economically than when the same process is done in-house. They can manage each aspect of the retrieval process with ease, start new requests, and track the status of past or pending requests.

Transparency of the Service Provider Is Indispensable

Transparency in all dealings is the hallmark feature of a good service provider. Law firms and legal entities must ensure that the vendor is transparent as regards the records retrieval process and allows full access at each step. Important information such as when a subpoena was served, whether documents are on hand, when they can expect to receive the records and so on must be readily made available.

Advantages

Service providers offer customized services in keeping with individual client needs and specifications. They will provide constant status updates, allow clients to make necessary alterations in the records, and request follow-ups in case the request was not properly completed. Legal entities considering such a service can look for the following features also:

• Some service providers also offer court filings and court reporting services, and X-ray film duplication among other solutions.
• Offer a time waiver and strive to deliver the necessary medical records before the set turnaround time to help the client meet a deadline.
• Identify missing records and inform the client of the same as early as possible to avoid any delay.
• HIPAA compliance with state-of-the-art security protocols.

With the right choice of service provider, vital medical information can be obtained without imposing stress on the in-house team and more efficiently. Law firms and legal entities can focus on studying their cases and putting together the information required for arguing the case or making a settlement.

Managed Outsource Solutions (Mos) has providing value-added medical record review services for the medico-legal industries.