You are talented! Don’t forget that. You can use your Professional Legal Nurse Consultant (PLNC) skills in LOTS of different ways. The most common way is to assist attorneys in what’s called the “pre-suit stage”. This is where trial lawyers have PLNCs review medical records and give their opinions.
It’s good to know that no matter where you live, your ability to review medical records and give your opinion is essential.
Whether you’re reviewing the medical records for the individual suing or the person or entity getting sued, you’ll get to use your know-how.
Pre-Suit Stage Let’s look at the definition of “pre-suit stage”. It’s that period of time after the event occurred that gave rise to the injury but before the actual case gets filed in the courthouse.
Four Parts of Pre-Suit Stage We’ll break down the pre-suit stage even farther, so you know exactly what’s happening at any given moment in time.
Notice: In order for your attorney to file a medical malpractice lawsuit, there must be enough evidence. Even before the actual filing of the lawsuit, some states require there be notice to potential defendants known as prelitigation filings. Some states require a sworn statement of the attorney, and/or the expert witness, as to the facts and conclusions.
Investigation: Regardless of the states’ requirements, as a PLNC you’ll need to read over all the medical records in the potential case. Then, you’ll give your opinion. The crux of the potential case is whether there’s enough evidence to substantiate the claims. You might be asked to complete a chronology, or timeline, to help simplify the facts. Usually, a chronology is used in more complicated cases, like obstetrics or long-term care cases. You might even help identify witnesses from the medical records.
Demand: After the attorney has reviewed your PLNC report and all relevant documents and things in the potential case, the attorney will arrive at a monetary demand. The attorney will discuss this dollar figure with the client in order to get their consent. The more medical records you review, the more you’ll get comfortable analyzing the value of the case no matter what side of the case you are on.
Settlement negotiations: You may, or may not, be part of settlement negotiations, but your medical record review weighs heavily in the attorney’s settlement demand. Just know that your assistance has been vital in getting the case to this point.
There are pros and cons on both sides of legal cases. Your job as the Professional Legal Nurse Consultant is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your side as well as that of the opponent’s side. The more you share your nursing and legal skills with the attorney, the more valuable you become in this pre-suit stage.
To review, the pre-suit stage consists of four aspects: notice, investigation, demand, and settlement negotiations. Your nursing knowledge, legal understanding, and professional experience are instrumental in helping clients with their cases.
P.S. Have you ever experienced participating in settlement negotiations? What was it like?
WATCH the video whether you already ARE a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant (PLNC) OR are considering it. For those who would rather read it than watch it, here’s the transcript:
Transcript of Video Nurses, do you feel your career has plateaued? Or might even be stuck in a rut? What if there was a way to substantially increase your income, while using your nursing knowledge for a good cause?
That’s the path you could take as a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant.
As a PLNC, you assist attorneys on a range of cases that require knowledge of nursing care. You can work in the comfort of your own home or in a law office reviewing medical records and alerting attorneys to pertinent facts.
If you’d like, you could even appear in court as an expert witness, which could pay even more.
Elizabeth Rudolph said:
Hi, I’m Elizabeth Rudolph. I’m a Registered Nurse and an attorney. I founded Jurex Nurse to deliver the highest level of legal nurse consultant training.
In as little as two days, you can become CERTIFIED as a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant, by taking an EASY, FUN, and INFORMATIVE course from Jurex Nurse.
Sandra, RN, PLNC said:
I took the Jurex course, and my experience was great! I gained the knowledge and skills to take my nursing career to the next level. I’m working now with three attorneys in my town. I’m making more money than I ever imaged, and I’m able to spend a lot more time with my family.
Every year there are thousands of cases that require Legal Nurse Consultants. If you’d like to be one of them, Jurex Nurse can give you the training, confidence, and ongoing support to succeed. With Jurex Nurse, you get:
Course and Materials
No-Risk Guarantee
Mentoring and Coaching opportunities
Marketing Instruction
Directory Listing
Elizabeth Rudolph said:
If you want to explore the opportunities as a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant, I’m happy to answer your questions in a FREE phone OR video consultation. Call or contact JurexNurse online.
Your attorney-client has provided a link to the medical records of three different providers of the patient. Your assignment: Review the medical records, provide a summary, and give your nursing opinion. You’re going to get paid handsomely for it, but how do you keep track of your time spent on the case?
Attorneys, usually defense attorneys, used to keep a notepad next to them and whenever they performed a task, they’d write it down on “time slips”. They’d include the date, time it took, and short description.
Fast forward to the digital era and attorneys keep “time” electronically. While that’s an option for legal nurse consultants, in my experience the best way to keep track of the time you spend on an assignment is by simply writing it down. Later, when it’s time to create an invoice, you can easily transcribe your time directly onto your invoice for services.
Follow these three steps to make recording your “time” easier 1. Keep a notepad next to you. On your notepad that’s kept next to you while you review a medical record, record the time you start and the time you stop, even if it’s just for a break. Then, record your restart time and stop time. Next to each start and stop time, record the task you performed.
For example, if I’m reviewing the medical bills from a healthcare provider, I would record the date and the start and stop time for those precise medical bills. My entry would say: “Review medical bills from [name of healthcare provider], 17 pages”.
2. Use the page count as a gauge. Once you review medical records and medical bills, you’ll get a feel for how long it ought to take you to review them. Of course, some documents require you to scrutinize them more in which case the page count is not necessarily reflective of how long it should take you to review them.
3. Record the amount of time per task. It’s possible that you could review the medical records and medical bills in a short amount of time, say, in one hour. Still, separate out the time you spent reviewing the medical records, summarizing the medical records, reviewing the medical bills, and summarizing the medical bills.
The reason to separate the time concisely is for your attorney-client’s benefit and, as is often the case, for the insurance company’s benefit. Recipients of your legal nurse consultant services want to know exactly how you spent your time and their money.
Keep it simple sweetheart will be your motto and you’ll find it’ll keep you in good stead.
Be prepared to handle a lot of money in your job as a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant. Start off right with a good accounting system and you’ll never have to worry. You don’t want to get yourself into a bind trying to piece together how much you billed and when. Worse yet, is trying to figure out how much you actually collected.
The Tax Man Cometh so be sure you’re in a good position from the start. Or if you’ve already started, clean up your accounting from here going forward by following these three methods.
Three methods to keep your accounting on track
1. Use a cash versus accrual accounting method. Decide how you’re going to keep track of the money coming in.
Simple put: Cash accounting reflects transactions when the cash flows into or out of your business. Accrual accounting reflects revenue as it’s earned and expenses as you incur them REGARDLESS of when you actually obtain the money.
For example, with cash accounting, as you receive the money, you record the date. As you purchase an item for your business, you record the date.
2. Open up a business bank account. Use the bank’s online app for mobile deposits. Get to know the branch manager, bank tellers, and bank representatives. This way, if something does go awry, you might be able to handle over the phone since they know you.
3. Keep track of all transactions daily. As a matter-of-fact, in my experience it’s best to check your bank’s app every morning so if there’s a discrepancy you’ll have time to address during banking hours.
Another of my experiences has been that “things take longer than you think”. Allow plenty of time to fix things as you might have to actually go to the bank in-person which would account for time there and bank, wait time, and time to speak with the bank’s representative.
The key to accounting success is recording everything timely. This means, when you send out an invoice, notate the date sent. When you receive the check for your invoice, notate the date received. When you buy something you need in your business, notate the date purchased.
By the end of the year, your “books” will be completely up-to-date. This will make your life indefinitely easier come tax time. You’ll be successful as a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant!
P.S. Comment below with your accounting hints. Or, email them at info@jurexnurse.com and we’ll be happy to share them with your PLNC colleagues.
You want to get PAID for the medical records you review. Here’s your Professional Legal Nurse Consultant primer on correctly billing your attorney-client so you earn the maximum. No more guesswork. No estimating. Follow these steps to make it easy for you and your attorney when it comes to billing.
The big difference between billable and nonbillable work for Legal Nurse Consultants
As a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant, your work is almost exclusively “billable” work. This means you’ll earn money for the legal nurse consultant services you provide. “Nonbillable” work, on the other hand, is work performed for which you can’t bill.
Let’s look at examples of both.
Billable work examples Reviewing medical records, reviewing medical bills, summarizing medical records, summarizing medical bills, drafting a chronology, researching medical conditions.
Nonbillable work examples
Preparing your invoice for work you performed, working on your own company’s marketing projects, trainings you attend, doing administrative work in your business, attending meetings not related to client assignments.
Six-minute billing cycle defined Lawyers usually bill their clients in six-minute increments. Every six minutes of time equals .10 of an hour.
As a PLNC, you might set your hourly rate at $150 per hour to review medical records. If you’re earning $150 per hour and you review a medical record for 30 minutes, you’d bill your attorney for .50 which means you’d earn $75.
Interestingly, for tasks that take you less than .10, you’ll normally round it up to .10 which is 6 minutes of time. Of course, it’s your prerogative if you want to not bill at all for tasks that take such little time.
For example, let’s say you receive an email from your attorney’s paralegal on a new case with instructions, descriptions, and the link to the medical records. If it took you close to six minutes to review this, you’d bill for .10. On your invoice you’d list the date, the description of “Review email from [Name of Paralegal] regarding instructions, description of facts, and medical records link” and the amount of time which would be .10.
You’re expected to be precise in your description on your invoice. This means including details on exactly what you did for the time you’re billing.
Ask yourself if what you did was billable or nonbillable work You’ll likely never bill for nonbillable work. Just know that the time it takes you to draft your invoice is on yourtime, not theirs. The first time you put together an invoice with your billable time on it, it could take you thirty minutes or longer. As you prepare more and more invoices it’ll take you much less time. Regardless, that’s part of doing business and you can’t bill for that.
One very important concept you should know is that you should ALWAYS be truthful in the amount of time billed. One overbill and your job with that attorney could be over. Worse yet, your reputation could be ruined. It’s never worth it to bill more than you actually worked.
The good news is that determining what’s billable and nonbillable work gets easier. As a matter-of-fact, you’ll likely master this distinction on your very first project.
P.S. Want to know how to hike your nursing income as a Professional Legal Nurse Consultant? Go here.
What type of personality do you have? It’s not a question of knowing yourself well, but well enough. We each have different personality temperaments and we use those traits in our lives and in our jobs.
You want to understand your personality temperament. What’s your core personality? Knowing this will unlock your potential and your self-awareness.
Just like there’s more than one nursing practice area, there’re many types of personalities that thrive in life and in careers. Look around in your current job. Think about the people you interact with. What types of personalities do you see?
How to determine if your personality fits with being a legal nurse consultant Think a nurse can only have one type of personality to be successful as a legal nurse consultant? Think again. There are MULTIPLE personality types of successful PLNCs.
Let’s figure out your personality type and see if it fits with being a legal nurse consultant also known as a nurse expert witness.
One of most often used personality tests is based on research by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and it’s called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The LINK to a FREE version of the Myers-Briggs short-form test is below.
Whether or not you’ve taken the Myers-Briggs test before, take the short one attached to the link at the end of this blog post.
The Myers-Briggs identifies many aspects of your personality, but here are the eight main types:
Which one are you or are you a combination? Extravert vs. Introvert: How we interact with world around us Sensing vs. Intuition: How we receive info and make decisions Thinking vs. Feeling: Our method of making decisions Judging vs. Perceiving: How we operate in the world
We get a four-letter combination. For example, you could be an IIFJ or and ESTP.
Legal Nurse Consultant Employment Settings Whether you’re an extravert, introvert, or a combination of these, as a PLNC, you’ll be able to use all your personality traits.
Let’s look at a real-life example
As a PLNC, you are your own boss. While you get medical record review assignments from an attorney, you get to work on your own, on your own time and at your own pace being mindful of any deadlines. You might provide your summary of the medical records by email, but you might provide them in-person in the attorney’s office or virtually via teleconference which we’ve come to know as Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, etc.
This goes to show you that no matter what your “Personality Type” is, you can be successful as a PLNC. In legal nurse consulting practice, you can draw on your more prominent traits.
There’s not just one type of personality that’s successful in legal nurse consulting practice. Look around you in nursing practice. Is only one nurse more successful than another? No.
The most important aspect of knowing your personality type is becoming more self-aware. So, take a short-form FREE version of Myers-Briggs test. And know that regardless of your personality type, you’re suited to be a successful Professional Legal Nurse Consultant.
P.S. Take the free version of a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator here. What is your personality type?
