Why Is A Medical Consultation Needed?
Although your patient’s attorney has probably obtained all the pertinent medical records from your office, doctors generally do not discuss legal issues like causation in their chart notes. Or, if they do discuss causation, the question may not be framed in the way required by legal cases. For example, words like “related” and “secondary to” do not satisfy the legal standard for causation in Workers’ Compensation cases which call for a medical opinion on the question of “major cause” or degree of cause relative to pre-existing conditions, injuries or other contributing causes. These and other questions concerning your patient’s injury or condition may need to be spelled out more definitively in terms and for purposes usually not addressed in medical records. How Can The Consultation Be Done? There are basically three ways an attorney can consult with a doctor: 1) in person, face-to-face; 2) by telephone; or 3) by sending a letter with specific questions or soliciting a written response
