Understanding and Addressing Medical Record Duplication

Introduction

Medical files are of great significance in the legal context especially for the solicitors engaged in personal injury, malpractice and health component cases. Nevertheless, the problem of replication of medical records may create a lot of complications. In this article, we seek to establish the lesser known reasons for medical record duplication, the issues this creates within legal contexts and how our medical record review facilities can assist law practitioners in overcoming such obstacles.

Understanding Medical Record Duplication

What is Medical Record Duplication?

Medical record duplication takes place when a patient’s information is recorded in more than one record, resulting in differences and confusion. Such a situation may exist within an institution or between two or more institutions.

Why is Medical Record Duplication a Concern for Attorneys?

For the attorneys, most cases rely on the validity of the documents available that is the medical records. When the records are duplicated, there are problems of understanding the patient’s history that can damage the court approval.

Common Causes of Medical Record Duplication

1. Patient Identification Errors

A typical example of this is whereby some patients cannot be correctly identified due to similarities in the patient’s names, birth dates and other demographic information and records end up being merged.

Solution:

Basic suggestions surround using patient identifiers like social security numbers as a situation. However, these can potentially reduce the negative effect to this problem.

2. Inconsistent Data Entry Practices

Patient data is recorded differently across many healthcare providers meaning that there will be challenges such as duplication.

Solution:

Uniformity in practice of recording patient data can be promoted by standardizing these practices across healthcare centers.

3. Mergers and Acquisitions in Healthcare

The merger of healthcare institutions often results in the combined patient records being merged as well, which may further create duplicate entries if not taken into consideration during the merger.

Solution:

Utilizing robust data policies throughout the merger process and its transitions allows avoiding data duplication.

4. Lack of Interoperability

There are lots of different healthcare systems which do not work with each other and as a result one person will have several papers in different healthcare systems.

Solution:

Building timely investable networks of health information systems can improve collaboration and prevent redundancy.

5. Manual Record Keeping

Sometimes even simple explanations such as records being taken down manually can result in individuals making mistakes and creating duplicates.

Solution:

EHR systems can assist in decreasing the chances of mistakes made during the recording processes as those will be eliminated through the transition.

The Implications of Medical Record Duplication

Impact on Legal Cases

Duplicate medical records can lead to:

· Misleading information in court

· Increased time spent on case preparation

· Potential loss of cases due to inaccurate medical histories

Financial Consequences

The financial implications of duplicate records can be significant, including:

• An increase in the cost of healthcare

• Legal costs for any dispute resolution that might arise due to the medical records

How Our Medical Record Review Services Help Attorneys

Comprehensive Review Process

In the course of medical record review, the medical records of the patient have been thoroughly considered as the attorneys have the firm belief that cases will represent only one side of the story.

Expert Analysis

Medical records are part of the evidence presented in most cases, and our experts describe how such medical history and records can be utilized by attorneys in their cases while pointing out the effects of duplication.

Customized Solutions

All lock the necessary ingredients, therefore, customized solutions are provided in order to reach the objectives as outlined within the instructions on the system used by the lawyers in relation to elimination of medical record duplication.

Case Studies

Case Study 1: Personal Injury Claim

Overview: A practitioner was representing a client in a personal injury matter which required the same medical files to support the case depicting how much the client had been injured in the process.

Challenges: The attorney encountered a challenge as they found several sub-records prompting the loss of firm detail concerning client’s medical history.

Solutions: Our team worked around all the conflicts and the duplicates and completed a logical sequence of events summarizing the patient’s medical history.

Case Study 2: Medical Malpractice

Overview: An attorney taking a case of medical malpractice met with difficulties due to contradictions in the medical records.

Challenges: Some separate units created gaps that complicated the case due to many duplicates.

Solutions: We analyzed the medical documents and potential discrepancies and wrote up an overview containing the relevant medical history of the patient.

Conclusion

Medical record duplication is a very important issue that potentially could affect legal cases in some ambience. If attorneys are able to appreciate the types of mistakes and resolve them, then they are sure to get precise data which helps them to build a strong case. The medical record review services offered by us will assist the attorneys in the complexities of these issues and will provide them with thorough assistance and evaluation.