Once you decide to pursue a personal injury claim following a car accident, your Bloomington personal injury lawyers will want to obtain a variety of information. If you were admitted to the hospital after the injury, your hospital admission records will be extremely important to your case and your lawyer will want to obtain them. Keep in mind that there may not be just one record sheet for your visit. If you were sent to different departments, such as the ER first and then to radiology for an X-ray, each department will likely have its own records.

How to obtain records

Your attorney will know how to make a request for your hospital records, but he or she will need certain information from you, such as your date of birth or Social Security number (anything that was used to identify you when you were admitted). You will also probably have to sign a medical release form giving your attorney consent to obtain these records on your behalf. Depending on how long you were in the hospital and how many departments you saw, this records request may be somewhat expensive. It may be possible to obtain a summary or abstract instead.

How is the admission record useful?

As you see different specialists and physicians during your stay, each will make notes on your chart. There are many parts of the medical chart, such as your admission sheet, your emergency room record, your ambulance call sheet (if you were brought in in an ambulance), and doctor’s orders. If you stayed over multiple days, there will likely be fluid intake/outtake reports, nurses’ notes, and medication charts to document your prognosis.

Contact Bloomington personal injury attorneys

For more information on how your medical records might be helpful to your personal injury claim, contact Bloomington personal injury lawyers at McCarthy Rowden & Baker.