Medical malpractice document checklist
If you have been injured as the result of an error on the part of a medical professional, you may be entitled to receive compensation for your losses by filing a lawsuit for medical malpractice. The first step in this process is hiring an attorney specializing in medical malpractice to file your claim.
At your initial consultation, the attorney will evaluate the validity of your claim to decide as to whether it is worth pursuing. As such, you should plan on bringing several documents to the appointment for the attorney to review as part of your medical malpractice case evaluation.
The best case scenario is that these documents will help when it comes to proving your case — that an injury has occurred, and that this injury was caused by negligence on the part of a medical professional.
To ensure that you are fully prepared for your consultation, you should make a checklist of documents you need to prove your medical malpractice case.
The list
The following is a list of documents that are crucial in proving a claim of medical malpractice:
- Medical records
- Prescription receipts
- Medical bills
- Insurance information
- Proof of lost wages
- “Other”
If you’re missing any of the documents that are pertinent to your case, your attorney may still decide to proceed with that case. However, he or she may be delayed in filing your claim while requests are made for medical records, insurance statements, any relevant correspondence, and previous billing statements from hospitals.
The “other” documents
While your medical records as well as any other supporting healthcare documentation, especially those with time stamps, are the keys to building a successful malpractice case, other types of evidence can prove to be very helpful, specifically those that contain names and dates.
Other documents specific to your case could include correspondence, including letters or emails, from the doctor regarding your procedure or treatment, correspondence from an insurer, receipts for any out-of-pocket expenses, photographs of the injured victim before and after the incident.
Create a timeline of events, adding the dates of your hospital stay, appointments with the doctor in question, treatments, and any other dates and times that may be relevant to your case. Write down anything you can remember about conversations that you had with any of the healthcare professionals who were involved in your case.
Making use of a medical malpractice document checklist can make proving the 4D’s of medical negligence — duty, deviation, damages, direct cause — that much easier for your attorney as they attempt to build a strong case in your favor.