Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome back to our series of 52 Weeks of Personal Injury. I'm Chase Ellaby, this is Joel Williams with Williams-Ellaby and we're going to talk to you today, week 30, about why medical records are so important in your injury case. So Joel, before we start talking about the medical records themselves, what are sort of the basic rules that deal with medical records?

Speaker 2: Alright, so if you're watching this video and you're drinking, then you can play a little game. Every time Chase says medical records in this video, you take a drink and we'll just have a little ticker in the top corner of the screen here that tells you exactly when you need to take a drink every time he says medical records. Anyway, so the first thing is, and the most important rule, is that the rules vary from state to state, so you need to know what the rules are in your state as to whether you can even use medical records in litigation, but even if you can't use them in litigation like you can here in Georgia, medical records are still very important when it comes to proving your injuries in a personal injury case. So why don't you give us an example, Chase, of how they can be important?

Speaker 1: Alright, so they're important, the medical records themselves are important because they can show sort of what your underlying condition was prior to the wreck, right? Whether or not you had any pre-existing issues, conditions that may have been exacerbated or may have been dormant and then caused by this wreck. So they're very important for that feature, I guess that's what we can call it. Most people have a primary care physician, so any time you're in litigation, the defense attorney will always request any prior medical records from your primary care physician and that's not because they really want to know or dig into whether or not you had a cold two years ago or whatever, they just want to see if you have a neck injury in this case, whether or not you ever complained of or had a neck injury prior to the wreck or whatever the incident might be.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's important for lawyers and insurance companies to have that information, right? Absolutely. Because at least in Georgia, it does matter if you've had a pre-existing condition, but you can still recover for an aggravation of that, but like you said, insurance adjusters and defense lawyers are always really interested to find out what kind of pre-existing condition you have and what the extent of it was before we get into trying to compare your injuries now versus the condition then. Right, exactly. I'd say another reason they're very important is because they sort of outline your doctor's diagnosis and your doctor's treatment plan, so we always kind of want to know what the exact diagnosis is. Is it a tear? Is it a strain? Is it a bulge? Is it a permanent type injury and what are we going to have to do to treat it and what's that going to cost? It gives us an idea from a plaintiff's lawyer's perspective of what do we need to approach the doctor with and have a discussion about in order to prove the extent of your injuries and it helps the defense have a better idea of the nature and extent of your injuries as well.

Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah. The medical records, they're evidence, right? It's basically the doctor's testimony on paper that are certified that show or tell rather what the injuries actually are, right? So it's one thing for if I was a plaintiff, I was injured and said my neck hurt or my back hurt, it's one thing for me to say it, it's another thing for the medical records to show based on the doctor's examination, the imaging, whatever it might be, that that is in fact what I'm suffering from or what the injury is. Another thing to be, I guess that medical records can be helpful for are the notes, right? The intake notes. A lot of times when you go to a medical provider, you have to fill out a sheet, how'd you get to us? What happened? When does it hurt? When does it hurt? Rate your pain scale. All those types of things are very important and we'll use physical therapy records as just an example because every time you go to physical therapy, I mean, if you have a physical therapy plan in place, it's usually two to three times a week for six to eight weeks. So you're becoming friends with a physical therapist and they always ask you how you're doing and things like that. And you might be talking about your weekend and how you're walking the dog or doing cartwheels or something like that. And it's going to be in those records, right? So those are helpful and they could potentially be hurtful, right? For the, depending on the type of case, to kind of show where you were at at that specific moment in time during that treatment. So those notes are always important as well.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think also, as far as the notes are concerned, lots of times, and we experienced this a lot with those physical therapists, like you go and you're having a conversation with them. You tell them what you've done about any vacations you've had, any trips you've had, any, um, event that has aggravated your condition. Well, that is just a goldmine of information for defense lawyers to come in and say, well, what in our client that caused all this is because you went out and tried to carry this a 50 pound bag of dog food when you had lifting restrictions, or it's because you went and tried to go surfing when you're not supposed to be doing that kind of movement, right? So you have to be in, keep in mind, everything you tell your doctor or your therapist or nurse could very well end up in the medical record. So don't just go in there and start talking about everything. Keep it. I mean, you're always going to be honest, obviously, but you want to go in and keep it real with the doctor and not just go off on tangents.

Speaker 1: Right. Because, you know, like I said, you get comfortable with that person and you like to explain their weekend or explain, you know, what happened or how you're doing. That's another thing, right? They're asking how you're feeling today. And most people, their general response to something like that is they're trying to be helpful. You know, if you're with a physical therapist, oh yeah, I'm doing good. I'm feeling better. You know, where you're, yeah, you're probably improving, but you might not be a hundred percent. Well, if you're a hundred percent, you might be a hundred percent, but you always kind of want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say, yeah, I'm feeling better type deal. And then it just goes in the record and it always nine times out of 10, depending on what it says, it gets taken out of context and it doesn't, it's not a case killer by any stretch of the imagination. It just gives ammunition to the other side to try to say, aha, well, you see here that this happened. So you either weren't as badly hurt as you said you are, or you got better. And then anything you had after that day is not our problem.

Speaker 2: So yeah, I'd say another reason they're important is because a lot of times in personal injury cases, we need to take the doctor's videotape deposition if we're going to try the lawsuit because most doctors aren't able to leave their patients or, or leave their practices in order to come to trial, just to testify for 30 minutes or an hour. So we go to them, we take their videotape deposition, and then we play it for the jury. But lots of times when they're given that videotape deposition, it's two years or three years since they had, since the original treatment date, and they have seen who knows how many patients in that time period, so they can use their records to refresh their memory about the treatment and care that they gave you. So I think that's a pretty important way that medical records can be utilized, not just by lawyers and insurance companies, but by the doctors themselves. Lastly, I would say not to jump on, jump in front of you, but lastly- The floor is yours. Yeah. My last thought is, I need you to say a term for me real quick. Say a what? Say a word. A word. Medical records. Yeah, there you go. My last thought of how medical records can be used is when you have your medical bills, you're going to be claiming those as damages, and you're going to need those records to correlate to the bills so that you can substantiate that this treatment was related to this expense. Exactly. Right? So if you've enjoyed this video on- Medical records. Then we would appreciate you giving us a thumbs up, subscribing to our channel, or putting a comment in the section below about- Medical records. If you think it would be helpful to any of your friends or family. Otherwise, we will see you next week for video number 31. Bye.