Medical malpractice is one of the common issues that result in the wrongful death of a person. In such cases, the vital evidence you require to claim compensation for your irreparable loss is the medical reports of the deceased. In fact, your wrongful death attorney is likely to ask for the medical reports before committing your case. Note that professionals will be able to determine the chances of winning the case by evaluating the medical reports of the deceased.
Furthermore, many states in the United States of America have to meet the ‘certificate of merit’ requirements. That is, once a wrongful death attorney evaluates the medical reports and figures out that his/their client has a case, they will have to show the reports to a credible physician and get it attested to point out or confirm the probability of medical malpractice.
In short, if you are planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit against a medical practitioner or an institution, you must obtain the medical records of the deceased as soon as you can. It to be noted that a medical report may sometimes consist of more than a thousand disorganized pages. On top of that, most of those pages will be hand-written making it even more challenging to understand. In fact, a person who is not into the medical profession might take months to evaluate all those pages. This explains why it is highly important to choose someone skilled in this field when you decide to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
Most seasoned death attorneys claim that it is much easier for the family members of the deceased to obtain the medical reports when compared to them. There are several reasons for this difference. The main reason is the absolute bureaucracy. Note that when an attorney wants the medical reports; they will have to first send a plea to through the sophisticated record keeping services. Secondly, it is passed to the practice group department of a particular medical institution or a practitioner. They will have to approve the attorney’s request through their own internal administration.
When it comes to the family of the deceased, they can just go to the medical report section directly and ask for a copy of the required document, which the medical institution is obliged to provide making the whole process much easier and fast. Furthermore, most hospitals may try to make the family members of the deceased fill some strange forms. It is recommended not to sign any of such forms since it is most likely to keep you from filing a wrongful death lawsuit against them. However, there are several state and federal laws that mandate the liability of medical institutions to provide the medical reports of their patients to their family members when asked.
