How to boost your in-house litigation bandwidth

Healthcare organizations have faced, and continue to face, tremendous challenges over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Whether dealing with vaccination mandates, facilities stretched to their limits with patients, or staffing shortages requiring bed closings, organizations have had to stay nimble to respond to ever-evolving circumstances. 

While COVID-19 remains at the forefront of healthcare organizations’ minds — and rightfully so — their in-house counsel must also have the bandwidth to respond to litigation, which remains a pressing concern. In recent years, healthcare organizations have seen a rise in both the number of claims and their value. Settlement amounts for pressure injuries, a common hospital-acquired injury, are on the rise in many markets, for example. 

The rising risk of liability exposure requires in-house teams to keep a close eye on both claims and their overall outside legal spend.

Med Law Advisory Partners offers healthcare organizations a way to expand their in-house capacity to respond to litigation and better align legal, quality assurance, and risk management initiatives. 

Med Law works directly with hospitals, health systems, insurers, and senior living facility operators to complement their in-house leaders, broaden internal capacity for medical-legal case investigation, determine the level of exposure based on merit, and facilitate a roadmap towards prompt resolution of claims.

Our team of consulting nurse experts has worked extensively in the analysis of medically complex cases, patient safety events, surgical and perinatal care outcomes, and identifying failures in systems and processes. 

Med Law’s team provides early assessment and valuation of claims, freeing up in-house legal teams to consider whether certain claims even need to go to outside counsel. 

In instances where outside counsel are engaged, they then are equipped with the early work completed by Med Law, including indexed medical records and reports, an initial opinion of liability, and areas of focus to hit the ground running. 

We partner with a wide range of health care entities to bring unique expertise that is highly cost-effective and cost-saving in an era where both quality of care and financial stewardship are critical priorities. 

Med Law is aligned with healthcare organizations in ensuring they receive the highest return from their litigation expenditures. Med Law’s consulting nurse experts can often provide their clinical expertise to in-house legal teams at a much lower overall expense than outsourcing to outside counsel.  

Additionally, Med Law offers its partners an opportunity to contain litigation costs so that healthcare organizations can have predictable, controlled budgets and expenses. Med Law helps eliminate the need for redundant, expensive clinical reviews of records.

Through partnering with Med Law, healthcare organizations can also leverage the work already being completed by our consulting nurse experts to proactively identify and respond to areas of concern and integrate insights with their quality and patient safety agenda.

Med Law has the expertise to capture vital information derived through extensive data collection, discern trends, identify system defects, and advise strategic options. Additionally, our staff can partner with yours to provide staff education on system defects to improve patient care and defensive documentation techniques to help mitigate litigation risk. 

The pandemic has forced individuals and organizations to question the status quo, leading them to a place of reevaluating their priorities, policies, and procedures. The present moment invites healthcare organizations to consider new processes to help both improve patient care and to maximize their already-strained resources.

Let our team of experts supplement yours. Contact us for more information on how Med Law can partner with your organization.