Attention Attorneys! SAVE TIME & MONEY with the help of a Legal Nurse Consultant!

I Hope I caught your attention with TIME and MONEY. Who doesn't want more of that?! I am here to talk about how working with a Legal Nurse Consultant can help you save both time and money, while taking some frustration off of your plate too!

I know some of you have heard of Legal Nurse Consultants (LNC’s), and have maybe even worked with one. I also understand some of you have never even heard of this role in your entire career as an attorney. While this role is not new, it is growing in popularity. So if you have not heard about it yet, I assure you that you likely will in the near future. First, I will help you understand what a legal nurse consultant is, and then I will explain why it is extremely beneficial to have one on your team.

A Legal Nurse Consultant is an experienced nurse who uses their expertise to consult on medical-legal cases. They ideally have many years of experience as a nurse and some form of training in legal nurse consulting. Legal nurse consultants help to bridge the gap between the medical and legal aspects of a case.

Nurses can assist with cases as either an expert witness or do more “behind the scenes” work. I have worked in both roles, but currently provide services “behind the scenes”. Some of these services include:

• Identification of appropriate Medical records and other medical documents

• Organization, interpretation, and analysis of medical documents

• Location/screening of expert witnesses

• Preparation of medical chronologies

• Identifications of standards of care

• Medical literature research

• Screening cases for merit

• Identifying case strengths and weaknesses

• Writing medical summaries

• Provide medical education to the legal team

• Evaluate future medical needs of clients

• Assist in deposition and trial preparation

Legal Nurse Consultants work on all types of cases. The obvious ones include personal injury and medical malpractice cases. Some pediatric specific cases that PediNurse, LLC may be able to assist it specifically include:

• Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury Cases involving children

• Criminal cases in which a child is the victim (non-accidental trauma, sexual assault, etc)

• Child Custody cases in which there is a medically-involved child

• Product liability cases involving children

A Legal Nurse Consultant can be a valuable tool in really any case that requires analysis of medical documents or facts. PediNurse, LLC can specifically help when there is a child involved.

Some attorneys ask “why would I hire an LNC when I have a paralegal?” Good question! While paralegals are essential to your work, most are not medically trained. A nurse with a medical background may be able to pick something out of a medical record that a paralegal with no medical background might skip right over. Sometimes these missed elements of a record can be a key component that makes or breaks your case. A nurse should never replace a paralegal and vice versa. Paralegals and Legal Nurse Consultants should really be working together as a team. The LNC may even be able to relieve the paralegal of some tasks so they can focus their time on other important work duties. I like to think of the two roles in terms of peanut butter and jelly. A sandwich (the case) might be good with one, but is really best with both! I hope whoever reads this is not strictly a peanut butter sandwich fan!

Ok, so why bother with us LNC’s? Well, aside from the fact that nurses are pretty awesome, there are some good reasons to have us on your side.

As I mentioned above, we can SAVE YOU TIME!

Trying to understand a medical record can be time-consuming and exhausting for someone who doesn’t work with them everyday. Terms like metaphyseal lesions, hypergammaglobulinemia, and pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism can make anyone go cross-eyed. Also, have you ever seen a medical record where someone is so abbreviation-happy, you think you are back in preschool trying to learn your ABC’s?

ASD: autism or heart defect?

PE: physical exam, pulmonary embolism?

Add an “A” to that one and you are now talking about cardiac arrest! Or are you eating a green vegetable?!

Do me a favor and do not google your way through these. You may get it wrong and miss something important! LET US FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOU! Trying to translate thousands of pages of this can take a TON of time, especially if you are not familiar with these terms. To nurses, reading records is second nature and far less torturous. I promise you will be happier not doing this. Take that time and put it to use doing something else more fun like golfing, wine tasting, or shopping!

Another thing that takes time is finding resources to strengthen your case. This may include finding an expert witness or certain medical literature to support your case. Nurses with a lot of experience come with a large network of resources that you may not have access to. They can find these resources a lot faster than your team may be able to, while also assessing their value to your case.

In case you missed it in the title, we can also SAVE YOU MONEY!

This is an obvious one. Many attorney’s turn to physicians to consult on medical questions related to a case. I am sure you are all aware, but physicians are EXPENSIVE! While it may be extremely helpful to utilize a physician as an expert witness, they do not need to be the one to assist with other medical aspects of a case. A nurse is able to help a case significantly at a fraction of the cost in terms of behind the scenes work product.

By nature, nurses are detail-oriented, great critical-thinkers, and organized, making them an incredible asset to your legal team.

“Okay, Okay, now why PediNurse, LLC!?”

If you have been on my website or social media, you have seen this many times, but I will say it again, in caps lock:

KIDS ARE NOT JUST TINY ADULTS!

While there are many great Legal Nurse Consultants out there, many only have a general nursing knowledge of children. PediNurse, LLC specializes in pediatric cases specifically. When you have a medical case that involves a child it is beneficial to have someone work with you who has expertise in this field because children are treated very differently from adults medically-speaking. I (Kim Kostas, owner/operator) have worked in various pediatric settings with both healthy children and children who are very medically complex. Some of these settings include some of the highest rated academic medical centers in the world. I have been board certified as a Pediatric Nurse and Pediatric Emergency Nurse and bring extensive knowledge and experience to my work. I thrive on educating others on the specialized needs of children.

I promise to deliver a great work product, tailored to your needs, with a smile to boot! :-)

Well, I hope I have convinced you to give us a shot! Feel free to visit our contact page to reach out and get started! https://www.pedinurseconsulting.com/contact