Medical Records are Required:

Personal injury cases, whether a dog bite, or a car collision are heavy on medical records. Medical records consist of the medical treatment record and the medical billing record. Insurance adjusters require both before they will consider making an offer to compensate you for your injuries.

Type of Medical Records in a Provo Car Accident:

Medical records come in many forms. There are ambulance billing and treatment records. Then once at the Emergency Room, there are ER records. ER records consist of the hospital/facility’s billing, the ER physicians’ billings, the Anesthesiologist’s billings, and the radiologist’s billing. Each entity or person billing for their medical services will also have a separate medical treatment record.

After discharge from the ER, you may follow-up with your general practice family doctor, thereafter, you will be referred to a physical therapist or a chiropractic physician. Again, each of these providers will have bills and records that your personal injury attorney must obtain.

Medical Providers are Slow to Produce Records:

Your car collision attorney cannot obtain these records until you are done treating at the facility or with the provider. This all takes time and lots of it. Once medical records can be obtained, it will take possibly two months to obtain them. This varies by provider, but by far, hospitals are the worst offenders for timely producing an injured party’s medical records. They often go though third party vendors, which only increases the bureaucratic process.

Sometimes the client can obtain their medical records faster and cheaper than their attorneys can because the hospital sometimes will provide them on the spot, especially if the client calls ahead. The risk of having the client get the records is that they often will miss providers, such as the radiologist, or the ER physicians’ bill, thinking instead the facility’s bill covers everything.

Insurance Adjuster has to Document the File with Medical Records:

Without obtaining the medical record and billing documentation, the insurance adjuster will often not be able to make a settlement offer. The adjuster oftentimes has to demonstrate to their chain of command that claims filed are properly documented before they can get permission to make a settlement offer.

Attorney Jacob S. Gunter regularly requests medical records and prepare claim packages for his personal injury car collision cases. He can be reached at (385) 269-9504.