An accident victim should release only relevant records to the insurance company. An injury lawyer in Lincoln for the victim could request records on behalf of a client.
Some healthcare providers charge a fee for performance of the services that are associated with the release of records
—The fee covers the cost for copying.
—The fee covers the expense of mailing the records, if that were to become necessary
If an attorney were to pay the provider’s fee, then the victim/client would need to reimburse that same attorney, after winning an award.
An experienced lawyer should make a notation on the release form, so that the insurance company could not gain access to records about injuries sustained in any earlier accidents.
Advantages to allowing release of records
Allows both sides to assess nature and extent of injuries
Reveals viability of the submitted claim
Allows record to be studied by any specialist that might be testifying at deposition or trial
Provides details on claimant’s injuries; such details help with calculation of damages.
Could reveal doctor’s mention about the likelihood for a given occurrence. That might help the claimant’s lawyer to present a stronger argument, supporting claims about the challenges that the victim could face in the future.
If the attorney were to prepare a video of the injured client’s typical day, words and phrases in the record might prove useful, during the writing of a dialogue that could accompany the scenes in the prepared video.
Drawbacks to release of records
Mistake could lead to sharing of information that was not relevant to the injury-causing accident
No guarantee that the insurance adjuster or the defendant’s lawyer will gain a full understanding of a given claimant’s pre-existing condition.
The adjuster might try to suggest that the claimant/victim should have been wearing some sort of protective device. In the absence of a knowledgeable specialist, there might not be anyone that could challenge the adjuster’s allegation.
Certain conversations between the victim/patient and the physician might not get mentioned in the record. For instance, there might not be information on the activities that the victim/patient was supposed to avoid.
That absence could create a problem. The adjuster might suggest that a certain activity had put the claimant/victim at-risk. The members of the jury might believe that suggestion, unless some specialist that was in the courtroom could challenge such an unsubstantiated allegation.
The ability to suggest a non-existent risk could be combined with a suggestion that the claimant/victim should have been wearing some sort of protective device. There might be nothing in the record to counter the ways that the adjuster had formulated, for swaying the minds of the jurors, so that each thought the victim should be blamed for the injury.