Why Attorneys Use Legal Nurse Consultants/Experts - Part 1
APRIL 18, 2022 | BY KATHLEEN MARTIN, RN, MSN, WCC
You may have asked yourself, “What is a Legal Nurse Consultant (LNC) and how I learn how to become an LNC.” The legal nurse consultant is a registered nurse who assists attorneys in navigating smoothly through the convoluted and confusing health care system. Whether the settings are acute care hospitals, outpatient settings/clinics, extended care skilled nursing centers, residential care centers, or physician offices, the LNC can accurately and thoroughly review, interpret and analyze the information as to the standard of care, omissions, errors and the appropriateness of care provided and can impart an opinion to the attorney.
Required Qualifications:
The two main qualifications for the LNC are that he or she must be a Registered Nurse with at least five years of clinical experience. It is not necessary that the LNC have experience in the legal arena. It is helpful, however, for the LNC to have advanced education in the form of university degrees, and/or ANA certifications in, for example, med-surg, oncology, wound care, critical care or another specialty area. Such certifications must be from bonafide nursing organizations, in areas such as geriatrics, critical care, or med-surg. Having an “LNC certification” is not valid or useful. Such “credentials”, as LNC with a certification designation, are bestowed by private companies selling their books and courses to unsuspecting nurses. It is not a credential, but a title denoting what a person does. No attorney will ever ask for a certification.
The attorney seeks the assistance of a qualified LNC/Expert because of the nursing and healthcare experience that gives the LNC the ability to determine whether a breach of the standard of care has occurred in his particular case. The LNC needs to be knowledgeable in the standard of care, the nurse scope of practice and the Nursing Practice Act, as well as the state and federal laws and regulations specific to the healthcare setting in which the alleged injury occurred. The LNC should be capable of providing the attorney with a succinct definition of the standard of care as well as his or her source(s) for that definition. Examples of some standards that may be used are the Federal OBRA/CMS standards used in Long Term Care, Joint Commission on Healthcare Accreditation, Department of Health and Senior Services by State, American Nurses’ Association, Wound Care Society, and many more.
Case Review:
An LNC can be utilized in any case where health, injury and illness are at issue. Examples where LNC services have been utilized are, of course, medical/nursing malpractice, personal injury, worker's Compensation, IME/DME, employment law and product liability.
Services:
The LNC can be utilized as a consultant, assisting behind the scenes, or as an expert witness. Some of the typical services the LNC provides, either as a consultant or an expert witness, are medical record review, reviewing cases for merit, medical record organization, and analysis of the medical record content and the care provided. The LNC can determine if a case has merit, if additional records are needed, and whether the standard of care was met. The expert witness LNC opines regarding the standard of care for deposition and trial, if necessary. Generally, the LNC expert witness may be asked to produce a written report for the attorney.
Communication:
Communication is an integral part of the LNC's duty. When contacted, the LNC asks what the case is about, what are the attorney's needs related to the case, whether the attorney requires the LNC's services as an expert witness or consultant, if a written or oral report is expected, the amount of time to be spent for the initial review and the deadline for submission of the work product/opinion. The LNC's fees are discussed and decided at this point. After record review has occurred, the LNC clearly and succinctly presents the facts of the case and his or her findings and opinions regarding the case to the attorney and may request additional documents for review to further test these findings and opinions. The LNC may also review the record for any fraudulent entries or other related issues. This will be covered in an upcoming article on this site.
The services of the LNC are particularly useful in the area of elder abuse. The medical records may be voluminous, as they can come from a multiple of health care settings and can cover an extended period of time. Long-term care facilities are subject to a tremendous amount of regulations that dictate their necessary documentation and cause the medical records to be complicated and very lengthy. The LNC, who is acquainted with the regulations, can efficiently review and assess whether the standard of care, the Nursing Practice Act, or the state and federal laws and {OBRA} regulations were or were not breached. The LNC can save the attorney time and money by utilizing his or her experience and knowledge to competently perform the medical record review and analysis of the care provided.
As registered nurses practicing within the realm of healthcare, we have been the "champions of the elderly" as the advocates of this group of patients. However, increasingly, nursing and other healthcare professionals, along with healthcare and community care facilities, have come under scrutiny by families and the legal profession making allegations of elder abuse. These allegations are aimed at those individuals and facilities that historically have been seen as the advocates for the elderly.
It is important to understand that the basic service provided by the acute care hospital and the skilled nursing facility is skilled nursing care. Nursing care is provided in addition to the medical services required by the person admitted as a patient in an acute care hospital or resident in a skilled nursing facility. Therefore, issues of negligence and the standard of care within a hospital or skilled nursing facility generally encompass the nursing care and services provided to the client. The seasoned LNC knows the scope within which he or she can opine and stays within the scope of nursing. Allegations of malpractice committed by other health care professionals need to be addressed by experts in that specific profession and not by the LNC.
Nurses working in wound care, or on a hospital med-surg floor, or any other clinical area, as well as teaching, can easily become an LNC and learn how to assist attorneys nationally with their interesting cases. If you would like to learn more about how to become an LNC, go to www.6figurelegalnurse.com for more information and to register for the 6-Figure Legal Nurse online course.
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS
ABOUT ME
RECENT POSTS
18 April, 2022
18 April, 2022
Legal Nurse Pro provides a comprehensive online course called the "6-Figure legal Nurse” designed for RN’s to learn how to become legal Nurse Consultants. Learn at your own pace with many videos, PDF templates and actual case samples. Ongoing mentoring is also available. Make over $100k part-time working from home!
CONNECT WITH US
Copyright © 2023 6-Figure Legal Nurse - All Rights Reserved.