How law firms can save time and money by availing radiology imaging retrieval services

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During court trials, many workers’ compensation and personal injury lawyers in the United States present ultrasounds, X-rays, and other radiology images that depict their clients’ injuries or illnesses. These images help jurors better understand the medical jargon used in the courtroom, enabling them to make informed decisions.

However, the process involved in being able to use radiology images in litigation is complicated and expensive. The good news is that your law firm can outsource your radiology imaging retrieval needs, saving you time and money in many ways.

Related reading: The challenges of using radiology images in litigation

Skip weeks of mailing or faxing request letters

When patients seek legal counsel, they rarely have their radiology images ready for sharing with their attorney. In fact, they might not yet even have undergone the necessary scans since these procedures, especially CT scans and MRIs, are quite expensive. If that’s the case, lawyers would often shoulder the expenses to have the scans performed.

After the radiology image is generated, it is usually up to the attorney to gain access to it. This would usually entail weeks of mailing or faxing request letters and follow-ups to the records custodian.

In contrast, if you partner up with Record Retrieval Solutions (RRS), you simply need to submit your order request via our secure online portal, and we’ll take it from there. We have developed personal relationships with records custodians, enabling us to significantly expedite the records retrieval process.

Stop waiting for CDs in the mail

While radiology images are now in digital format, they are still saved on a physical medium — often a CD or DVD — when lawyers require a copy. The disc is then mailed to law offices and would typically take a couple of weeks to reach its destination, provided it doesn’t get lost or stolen during transit. But if the disc successfully arrives, there is no guarantee that it didn’t get damaged during shipping or if its contents are complete or accurate. Such unfortunate scenarios would mean having to go through the entire lengthy retrieval process all over again.

With RRS’s radiology imaging retrieval service, records custodians need only drag and drop the requested images into our HIPAA-compliant online portal, allowing them to respond faster to your request. You can then easily view and download those files from the portal.

What’s more, our records specialists double-check the uploaded images, so you are guaranteed that you’ll receive the correct and complete medical images you requested.

No need for optical drives

Most modern laptops no longer have optical drives, so if attorneys need to access radiology images saved on discs, they would need to purchase an external optical drive. Alternatively, they can hold on to old — and excruciatingly slow — computers with an optical drive.

When you avail of our retrieval service, you can use the web browser of any internet-connected device — laptop, desktop, smartphone, or tablet — to view and download your requested radiology images.

Use a single viewer

In the traditional radiology imaging retrieval process, lawyers would need to figure out how to view the images using the rudimentary viewer included in the disc. Unfortunately, records custodians use different viewers, each with its own usage instructions. Comprehending each viewer can be frustrating and time-consuming.

With RRS, you can view all of your requested records using just our built-in standardized, full-featured viewer.

Easily share radiology images

In many cases, lawyers would need to share radiology images with one or more expert witnesses for their review and analysis. This would typically mean going through another burdensome, costly round of saving those images onto a disc and shipping that disc.

In contrast, sharing radiology images is fast and cost-efficient with RRS. Using the same portal, you can give expert witnesses or any third party remote secure access to the images. You can even take advantage of our shared online viewing feature to make remote expert consultations more productive.

Excited to take advantage of RRS’s radiology imaging retrieval service? Get started now!

About The Author

img Chuck Dart
Chuck Dart started in the record retrieval business three decades ago. As the industry evolved from analog to digital, he recognized an opportunity to create a single, simple online solution that standardizes the record request and retrieval process across the entire healthcare industry.

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