Licensed Legal Nurse Consultant’s Pain and Suffering Analysis Spurs Record Settlement
When a lawyer handles a medical-related suit, the lawyer is challenged with massive volumes of medical records packed with mystical terms, mysterious shorthand and indecipherable handwriting. His customer’s (complainant or defense) future depends on the lawyer understanding those records and utilizing them to support the case efficiently. That’s why being a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is the healthiest thing that will ever occur to your attorney-client’s practice.
On a warm Virginia early morning, meter house maid Beverly Adams was badly burned over 50% of her body when her three-wheeled motorbike turned over and captured fire. “She was making a small turn on dry pavement,” states her lawyer, Rob Walker of Robert Walker and Associates, Richmond.
” Under Virginia law,” continues Walker, “you can’t take legal action against a company for an on-the-job injury that happens in the course of work. Rather, we handled the engineering company and the foreign corporation that dispersed the car and created.”
According to Walker, his 42-year-old nonsmoking customer sang in her church choir and was a 15-year veteran of the police. Adams had a credibility for going by the book and composing more tickets than the majority of her peers. “She was the ideal complainant,” he states.
The mishap altered Adams’ life totally and completely. “In addition to her extreme burns,” states Walker, “she lost 4 fingers on one hand, lost her eyelids, ears, nose and many of her hair.
How does the lawyer make sense of a year’s worth of complex medical records explaining such terrible injuries? Walker’s response is basic: He does not.
The Certified Legal Nurse Consultant Is the Key to Understanding the Medical Issues
For the Adams case, Scott tapped both her 19 years of nursing experience and her comprehensive training as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. I likewise pulled out every tape-recorded circumstances of Adam’s discomfort and suffering and prepared a chart noting all the discomfort medications, sedatives, and so on, she took.”
Walker discusses the worth of Scott’s Certified Legal Nurse Consultant services. Sharon indexed the records so we might discover what we were looking for.
” We were most worried about Adams’ discomfort and suffering,” he continues. Debridement is simply a medical term to me. Sharon discussed that suggested scrubbing off the dead skin.
Scott’s next action was to make the real quantity of pain reliever Adams got genuine for individuals. Walker describes, “Sharon tallied all the does for the very first 6 weeks of treatment, then concluded by stating my customer had actually gotten enough medication to eliminate the discomfort of 850 cardiovascular disease or 1,700-3,400 hours of labor. That brilliant image of what Adams went through offered us a benefit over the defense lawyer when we began speaking about damages.”
The case was pending in federal court, regional guidelines needed Walker and the defense to try a good-faith settlement. Sharon’s summary made the damages so apparent, we never ever had to discuss them.
The outcome was a $14,000,000 settlement, at that time (2000) among the biggest out-of-court settlements ever grabbed an accident case in Virginia. “One factor we got this settlement,” Walker acknowledges, “was the understanding of the medical records Sharon provided us.” An indirect outcome of this case was that the automobile in which Adams almost passed away has actually been revamped to move the gas tank and its opening to the back.
Licensed Legal Nurse Consultants Save Attorneys Time and Money
I have a little workplace,” Walker states. “I can’t check out 4,000 pages of medical records. Having the services of somebody like Sharon permits me to handle intricate cases that I might not manage otherwise.”
Scott’s status as an independent Certified Legal Nurse Consultant in personal practice is a benefit for Walker. “I trust her judgment and her viewpoints more than I would a nurse working in my own workplace.
Another advantage of working with a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is expense savings. If you’re in a medium-sized or little company and you need assist indexing records or comprehending intricate medical concerns, a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is vital.”
“She was making a small turn on dry pavement,” states her lawyer, Rob Walker of Robert Walker and Associates, Richmond. For the Adams case, Scott tapped both her 19 years of nursing experience and her comprehensive training as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Walker describes the worth of Scott’s Certified Legal Nurse Consultant services. Scott’s status as an independent Certified Legal Nurse Consultant in personal practice is a benefit for Walker. If you’re in a medium-sized or little company and you need assist indexing records or comprehending intricate medical concerns, a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant is vital.”