What is every lawyer going to need when you first talk to a lawyer about a potential medical mistake?
So, I have a super important guy who called me not on his behalf, but on behalf of a family member. And it’s too soon to tell what the outcome is, based on the story, he told me it sure sounds like a medical malpractice. It sounds like they screwed up twice and definitely bad consequences for the patient. But the crucial thing for a lawyer to tell you whether it’s definitely malpractice and whether you might have a medical malpractice case is getting the medical records.
In this circumstance, there were a couple of doctor visits and then a hospital stay. And as I explained to this gentleman that I needed all the medical records, not just the medical records after the problem or emergency situation developed but the medical care leading up to it and the medical care surrounding the mistake that the doctor did, or the diagnosis they missed, or giving the wrong medicine. So, getting the medical records really means going a little bit further back in time than you might anticipate.
Medical Records Are Needed
So why do I need the medical malpractice records? Well, the medical records are needed to determine if there’s a medical malpractice. The reader’s digest version of it is medical malpractice cases are a little bit different than other kind of cases because they involve medicine and because you can’t sue a doctor or a hospital without me getting a medical opinion. Before I even file a lawsuit, we really have to understand the medicine and go over it with a fine-tooth comb because a regular person version of the law of medical malpractice in Illinois and in most cases is that if, “What did the doctor do?” or “What did the doctor failed to do that caused an injury?”
A harm is just part of the normal practice and it’s what they do and it’s what they’re taught to do. It’s just one of those things that there was a bad outcome, then you really can’t sue for that. But if the doctor made a mistake that are reasonably, doctor or hospital or nurse should never make or they missed a diagnosis that was right in front of them, then that’s the case.
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You Need An Expert Attorney
Now, there are two parts to it, one is as an attorney. Having done this for a long time, I can read the medical records and get a pretty good idea whether it's a case that we can go forward with. But the second part of the case is the more important one where I go out and hire a doctor to look at the records and tell me whether he or she thinks it rises to the level of malpractice.
And we need the expert opinion before I can even file a lawsuit so if you or a loved one suspects medical malpractice in this area of my chart and electronic charts especially for hospitals, it's a really good idea for you to download the medical treatment. For some period usually, if you get medical records for the year before the onset of the malpractice through the present day.
You can talk to a lawyer and hand those records to the lawyer or better yet email them to the lawyer after you've hired the lawyer. I don't recommend that you just email medical records to people randomly, that's going to let the lawyer immediately, start reading your medical records right away. It might be that your medical malpractice lawyer is actually going to want to get a official subpoenaed, set of the medical records, a certified set of medical records where the hospital or the doctor certifies that the records are complete accurate.
Download The Chart
But even without that certification, if you can download them from my chart or whatever web portal your doctor uses and you can, get them over to the attorney through a service like dropbox or you know google has an equivalent of it. You can just email them if the if the file is small enough, but as a general rule, if you go all medical care for one year before the problem developed or the mistake was made through the present and you can give those to a lawyer.
The lawyer is going to be able to screen your medical malpractice case and give you an answer much quicker. If a lawyer has to order medical records, it puts the doctor or hospital on notice that you might be making a claim. You know when a patient requests medical records you get them right away, but when a lawyer's office requests them that they put them on the bottom of the stack of request. So good reasons why you should get the medical records of your loved ones if you suspect medical malpractice. I hope that information helps you, obviously I make my money by representing injured people.
And people who have been the victims of medical malpractice or a work injury or a car accident or however you were wrongfully injured. If you need a lawyer, or you need somebody who might need a lawyer, please refer them to me you can always call. You can reach out to me if you have any question, give me a call 312-500-4500.
