INFORMATION FOR NEW LNCs

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LNCtips.com: Treater Lists


A treater is a person who provides care to a patient. In medical-legal cases, a treater list is a concise and comprehensive accounting of individuals who have interacted with the patient.  Not many legal nurse consultants create treater lists because attorneys can obtain lists of treaters through the formal discovery process. But there are four reasons why you should create a treater list for each set of medical records that you review.

First, not many LNCs create treater lists. Some LNCs may not even know what a treater list is. Providing an attorney with this additional service could put you ahead of the pack.

Second, the chances are high that treater names supplied during discovery will be incomplete. Our health care system is a disjointed one. Without a centralized documentation system, attorneys have to rely on the patient and defendants to supply them with treater names.  Patients may forget or not know who provided care to them; treaters themselves won't know who all the other treaters involved in the case are.

Third, creating a treater list is proactive.  If the attorney obtains names of treaters through the discovery process, the independent LNC may  not have the opportunity to review those records. But with the treater lists that they generate, inhouse and independent LNCs can offer to cross-reference the treater list with the subpoena or medical record authorization log, make recommendations to the attorney about which records to procure, and review the additional medical records. And since many firms obtain medical records from ALL treaters, this could generate significantly more business for the legal nurse consultant.

Fourth, treater lists make the attorney's job easier.  Attorneys can review the LNC's medical summary or chronology and pull out treater names. But why not provide this service for them?

Treater List Samples

Treater lists are sometimes called other names although there are some distinctions:

*Provider List. Provider and treater are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably.  However, some use this term to include the names of healthcare organizations as well as persons. Healthcare organizations might include hospitals, nursing homes, home health organizations, medical clinics, diagnostic centers, ambulance services and others.  To view  a sample treater list, click here.  A sample provider list is shown in the treater list video.

*Fact Witness List.  Fact witnesses include treaters as well as other persons involved in the case who have first hand knowledge of the case events. Fact witnesses might include family members, police officers, and friends of the plaintiff.  This type of list contains the name and address of each witness but no other information. If a fact witness is a party in the suit, the address is usually in care of the witness' attorney.  Click here to view a Fact Witness List.

*Cast of Characters. This is a term used by CaseMap. It includes everyone involved in the case including treaters, other fact witnesses and expert witnesses.

With the exception of fact witness lists, treater lists are usually created in table format. The list may just include names or other information might be included, such as the treater's role in the case or address.

Treater List Video

There are several ways to generate a treater list. A common way is to review the medical records specifically for the purpose of generating the list. As each page of the medical record is reviewed, the legal nurse consultant notes the name of the treater. There is nothing wrong with this method although it may take hours to review voluminous records.

A quicker way to generate a treater list is to create it "on  the fly". We'll show you how to easily create a list while you're typing your medical summary or chronology.  To watch the video, click here.

...Katy Jones