By Bill Wells Board-Certified Personal Injury Attorney
Personal injury cases are scrutinized by insurance adjusters, insurance lawyers, judges and juries. The injured person has to prove their case to win. The defendant doesn’t have to do anything but show up, and then the burden shifts to the injured to prove their case.
Medical records are very important to proving a case. Mistakes are made, way too often, by medical providers. An insurance attorney will jump all over a medical record that isn’t consistent with what an injured person relates as the history of injury or treatment. It drives me a little crazy to see the mistakes made in medical records. Frequently the records simply don’t reflect the facts. I’ve seen car accident cases where the records say it was a “fall”. I’ve seen fall cases where the records say the injury started with a “car accident”. I’ve seen records record the wrong body parts, get the patients mixed up, get left and right backwards, get races wrong, get date of birth wrong and everything else in between.
These mistakes need to be caught and dealt with. The medical providers get careless in their record keeping and it can cause a big headache in a personal injury case. A careful review of the records is a good idea! Some records can be fixed by the provider, some at least need an explanation of how they messed up.
About the Author
Bill Wells has been Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since 1990. The Board of Legal Specialization was created by the Supreme Court of Texas and is charged with recognizing lawyers that have demonstrated special competence in a particular field of law, such as personal injury and wrongful death.
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By Bill Wells Board-Certified Personal Injury Attorney
Medical Records
Personal injury cases are scrutinized by insurance adjusters, insurance lawyers, judges and juries. The injured person has to prove their case to win. The defendant doesn’t have to do anything but show up, and then the burden shifts to the injured to prove their case.
Medical records are very important to proving a case. Mistakes are made, way too often, by medical providers. An insurance attorney will jump all over a medical record that isn’t consistent with what an injured person relates as the history of injury or treatment. It drives me a little crazy to see the mistakes made in medical records. Frequently the records simply don’t reflect the facts. I’ve seen car accident cases where the records say it was a “fall”. I’ve seen fall cases where the records say the injury started with a “car accident”. I’ve seen records record the wrong body parts, get the patients mixed up, get left and right backwards, get races wrong, get date of birth wrong and everything else in between.
These mistakes need to be caught and dealt with. The medical providers get careless in their record keeping and it can cause a big headache in a personal injury case. A careful review of the records is a good idea! Some records can be fixed by the provider, some at least need an explanation of how they messed up.
About the Author
Bill Wells has been Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since 1990. The Board of Legal Specialization was created by the Supreme Court of Texas and is charged with recognizing lawyers that have demonstrated special competence in a particular field of law, such as personal injury and wrongful death.
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