Flat Rate Verbal Merit Review Terms And Conditions

Your placement of an order for a Flat Rate Verbal Merit Review implies your agreement and understanding of our terms and conditions. 

SCOPE: 

Our Flat-Rate Verbal Merit Review is a presentation of our individual specialty consultant’s general clinical opinion on whether violations of, or breaches in the standard of care exist in a given case, and whether they have a clear causative connection to alleged damages. Secondarily, we can provide input on whether the damages are likely to justify the costs of litigation, however this determination is not the primary purpose of our service.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Our Signature flat rate merit review only applies to medical malpractice cases wherein you need a medical professional to provide an opinion on standards of care in a healthcare setting. Personal injury cases that did not occur at the hands of medical professionals can be reviewed with our hourly rates.

Our Signature Flat Rate Merit Review only applies to cases that have not been filed, and are not yet in litigation. Consultation on cases for which a lawsuit has been filed can be accommodated with hourly billing.

FLAT RATE BILLING:

Billing determination for the service is based on number of pages of medical record initially submitted at the time of payment of the retainer, not hours worked. Using this pricing structure, the cost and risk to your firm is predictable and limited. 

OBJECTIVE:

The main purpose and objective of the Merit Review is twofold: 1. to screen out cases that do not have merit to avoid your firm’s expenditure of unnecessary resources on such cases. 2. to give you a solid basis from which to begin the litigation process for cases that do have merit.

Our Flat-Rate Merit Review is preliminary, and is designed to present a general–though not comprehensive–verbal clinical analysis of cases that do have merit. We do offer more comprehensive litigation support services on an hourly basis beyond this phase.

SUBSEQUENT RECORDS:

In virtually every case, part of our signature service is to help you identify missing records to help further establish merit. However, our flat rate signature service covers only those records that were delivered at the time of payment of invoice, which is due prior to any work being performed on the case. Any records that come in after that point can be reviewed at an hourly rate. 

UNDETERMINED MERIT:

Therefore, our determination of merit following a review of initially-presented records may be “the records required to fully establish merit are not present at this time”. Such determination will come with a specific list of records that can be obtained to make the determination. In that case, future requests to review such missing records–as well as requests to review any other records that are presented beyond this stage– will be accommodated through hourly billing. Hourly billing will begin following delivery or attempted delivery of the analysis of the initial records drop. 

WRITTEN WORK PRODUCT: 

This signature Flat Rate Verbal Merit Review service does not include any written work product. Though it is not necessarily included, your consultant may provide you a complimentary PDF table of contents on cases >500 pages wherein merit was determined to be present. 

“DISCOUNT” OR “CREDIT” TOWARD HOURLY WORK:

Of note, though the service does not include written work product, your consultant may take notes behind the scenes on their specific findings, which greatly reduces time spent on the case when moving forward hourly for litigation support, such as the development of a medical chronology or a written summary of the standard of care issues, etc. Therefore beginning your case analysis with an order for a Signature Flat Rate Verbal Merit Review stabilizes and limits your risk if a case does not have merit, and gets you ahead of the game on the hourly work if it does. 

You may choose to have your entire case reviewed hourly from the beginning, with or without a request for written work product. If you opt for this, please let us know before the flat rate invoice is paid. After the invoice has been paid, we will immediately seek to retain the consultant based on the payment structure that you secured, and it will therefore not be a reversible decision. 

OPINION DISCLAIMER: 

Our consultants’ opinion is their own and does not represent the opinion of Discovery NP Legal Consultants as a whole. As medical consultants, our consultants’ opinions are not legal advice. Such opinions are meant for advisement purposes only from a clinical standpoint. You, as the attorney, are the only one that can declare the legal merits of a case. 

BILLING DISCLAIMER: 

You may be subject to additional billing and/or partial refund if the final count of pages differs from your estimate. Supplemental billing is due after a completed page count and prior to continuing work on the case. Any applicable partial refunds will be processed at the time of delivery of any final deliverable to you.