Medical Records and Legal Funding Decisions

The Role of Medical Records in Legal Funding Decisions

Medical records play a critical role in legal funding decisions. These documents don’t just record health data; they also provide a valuable picture of the case’s potential value. Accurate and complete medical records become key evidence in personal injury cases, often significantly shaping the final settlement figures.

When considering an application for legal funding, lenders rely heavily on these documents, since they detail the injuries sustained and the treatments undergone. Such specifics help assess the case accurately, facilitating fair and informed financial assistance decisions.

Legal Funding Depends on Case Value, and Case Value on Medical Records

Whether you get approved for funding usually depends on a few basic factors: liability, damages, and coverage.

If there is sufficient coverage and liability is pretty clear, the value of your case will likely boil down to the damages you’ve suffered.

Legal funding companies look at your medical records to see what treatment you’ve had and what treatment you are likely to have in the future. Because all of this treatment costs money, it provides a hard number for the damages you’ve suffered.

As a rule of thumb, most funders will assume a three-times multiplier on medical expenses for an estimate of case value. While this is a decent estimate, serious conditions and permanent injuries can have dramatic effects on settlement value.

Initial Medical Reports and Legal Funding

In some cases, these reports might also be helpful for establishing liability. Legal funding companies like to see a consistent story.

If you tell the ER on the day of the accident that only your knee hurts and later require serious back surgery, a lawsuit funding company could be skeptical about the cause of your back injury.

Some injuries take time to present, but it is important to tell medical providers about all your injuries, even if they seem minor.

Diagnostic Medical Records and Legal Funding

For a legal funding company, diagnostic records like X-rays or MRIs provide a clear picture of current injuries and potential future treatment.

If you require surgery, these records are also used to justify that the procedure was necessary following a conservative treatment plan.

Operative Reports

Operative reports give legal funding companies a breakdown of your surgery. All other things being equal, funders estimate case values based on the type of operation. Knee arthroscopy is less serious than neck fusion surgery, and the case value reflects this.

Surgeons often provide commentary on the pre-surgery condition and post-surgery improvement. This information tells funders clearly what surgery you had and whether any future surgeries are likely.

Healthcare Plan Reports

It’s important that your settlement compensates you for the cost of future treatment and procedures. If you will require ongoing treatment, your attorney might have an expert draw up a healthcare plan report.

Just like past medical expenses, pre-settlement funding companies will take future medical expenses into account when valuing your personal injury case. Without a healthcare plan report, it is much tougher to give full value to expected future treatment. Once you have a healthcare plan report, funding companies treat these as likely future expenses. Legal funding companies are more likely to fully value planned expenses when considering funding your case.

Uplift Legal Funding

Hopefully, this article has shed some light on how medical records and legal funding decisions work. Uplift Legal Funding provides fast and easy legal funding for most personal injury cases.

If you have a personal injury case and are in need of funding, apply online or call us at (800) 385-3660.

To learn more, see our breakdown of how legal funding works.