What Is A Legal Nurse Consultant?
The practice of legal nurse consulting was born approximately 20 years ago to facilitate the understanding of medical events in a legal venue. Attorneys had previously used professionals and experts from various disciplines to support their cases. As the role of the nurse consultant began to develop, attorneys learned the value of the significant contributions to case development that nurses could provide as a result of their collaborative experiences in healthcare.
Legal nurse consulting has been designated as a specialty area of nursing practice. Training programs and certifications that provide valuable information and insight to the beginning legal nurse consultant (LNC) are available.
The LNC is not a paralegal: his/her value comes not from a legal education, but from experience as a healthcare professional - though it would not be unusual for a nurse to assume some of the duties of a paralegal in certain practice settings. A clear distinction should be made when discussing the role of an LNC versus that of a paralegal. Though the nurse consultant may take on some of the duties of a paralegal - the LNC’s primary role is to evaluate, analyze, and render informed opinions on the delivery of healthcare and resulting outcomes.
The role of the legal nurse consultant in practice includes many facets - and multiple benefits to the client. These include, but may not be limited to:
- Preparing letters to request medical records
- Paginating and tabbing the medical records
- Tracking for accurate medical record keeping
- Identifying missing medical records
- Completing work as an attorney product under confidentiality
- Working within the budget provided
- Reviewing any case where injury is at question
- Reviewing for merit and providing recommendation to the attorney (In no way does this include the practice of law—the attorney client always provides the final decision.)
- Analyzing and defining the medical issues in the case
- Assessing issues of causation
- Assessing issues of damages
- Analyzing and defining future medical needs of the injured client
- Analyzing and projecting future medical costs of the injured client
- Generating research-based reports
- Generating a meritorious-based report
- Creating a list of all parties involved in the case
- Generating a detailed chronology of the case
- Creating a medication list with potential side effects
- Providing demonstrative evidence in timelines and pictures
- Recommending Medicare Set-Aside Allocations when appropriate
- Recommending Life Care Planning when appropriate
- Researching like medical conditions in other cases for the attorney client
- Recommending cost-saving techniques for the attorney and client
- Providing recommendations for client safety questions
- Identifying testifying experts needed
- Locate and interview potential expert witnesses
- Preparing the expert witnesses
- Serving as an expert witness when appropriate
- Serving as a fact witness
- Educating the attorney-client in the disease or the disease process
- Explaining and teaching the medical record to attorney and his/her client
- Teach medical terminology, acronyms, and abbreviations
- Explaining the administrative procedures and structure of the medical facility
- Providing attorney support during deposition, discovery, trial and mediation
- Assisting in the production of interrogatories
- Providing medical research regarding the disease and the disease process
- Providing current standards of care and policies and procedures in medical issues
- Building the attorney client library with meritorious research
- Assisting the attorney in the development of case strategy
- Preparing the medical case for trial proceedings
- Attending Independent Medical Examinations (IME)
- Consulting with external persons to obtain deeper understanding of the possible needs of the case, i.e., billing and coding, diagnosis and treatment needs
It should be mentioned that this is not an area of nursing specialty practice that is an easy road to higher pay and independence as it has been perceived by some over the development of this particular specialty. Quite the contrary! It requires self-discipline to stay the course of locating and marketing to new clients, often taking weeks or months - even years, to get a private practice started.
It also involves a great deal of self-confidence to sell special skills and abilities to attorneys - something clinical nurses usually portray to a prospective employer by simply presenting a resume.
The skills of the nurse as educator are among the most valuable in possession of the LNC. The LNC finds his or herself entrenched in the education of the attorney, legal support staff, and jury to assist in finding the truth and guiding them through the processes of discovery, mediation, and trial.