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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- What is a legal nurse consultant?
- Who employs legal nurse consultants?
- What is involved in case screening?
- Why not just hire a physician?
- Why do I need a legal nurse to summarize a
case?
- How do I get a quote?
A
legal nurse consultant is an individual with expertise in both nursing and
the law. This specially trained nurse assists those involved in the
litigation process by acting as a bridge between the worlds of law and
medicine.
Nurses in this field work with primarily defense and plaintiff attorneys,
insurance companies, and the court system. They are also employed by
healthcare facilities to provide risk prevention services.
FLNC, Inc. works with plaintiff and defense attorneys who are handling
personal injury, medical malpractice, products liability and criminal cases.
We
help attorneys after they have obtained the records, we review them and offer a screening
opinion on the merits of the case. Our legal nurse consultant provides an
opinion based on their years of screening medical issue cases. She
reviews cases involving most areas of medicine, deviations of standards of
care, negligence of the healthcare worker or corporation and other aspects
of the case that support the attorney's litigation claims. The attorney may then chose
to use our services to provide a more detailed
review of the case.
The
economics of screening a case suggest that it is far less expensive to use
our service than to send the case directly to a physician to review. A
physician charges $350-$500 or more per hour to screen a case. Our hourly
rate is a fraction of that. In order to win a case (obtain a settlement or
trial verdict), the patient (plaintiff) has the burden to prove several things:
1.
The healthcare provider had a duty to provide care.
2.
The standard of care was not followed.
3.
The patient suffered some type of injury.
4.
It was the deviation from the standard of care that caused the injury to the
patient
Most of the cases that we review do not contain all four of these elements.
It becomes very expensive to refer every case to an expert witness to
review, when our nurse can analyze the four elements of the
case instead.
The
nurse is better able to read and interpret medical records than the typical
attorney. Nurses are used to healthcare worker's handwriting, medical terminology
and abbreviations. We can spot the significant clinical information that may
not be noticed by the attorney. A summary provides a concise snapshot of the
significant information that will affect the claim.
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