reports

Remember when you were in grammar school and had to write reports? Remember how the students with the best handwriting always got better grades? When I clicked to that fact I concentrated on making my handwriting as neat as possible, hoping to score a bonus point or two. And except for my grades in conduct, I did a great job of accomplishing that goal.

First impressions are indeed lasting in all aspects of life and that fact is especially true for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants and their attorney-clients. My first subcontractors were my typist’s children. She had eight kids and I used seven of them in my business through the years. They became excellent assistants, pulling the results of my research from the shelves of the medical library. I personally taught each and every one of them the art of making flawless, straight copies of those research studies. Their work contributed to the first impressions I was making with my attorney-clients.

My typist and I were both equally attentive to the appearance of the reports. By the time the attorney sat down to absorb them he was ready. Nothing (no typos, bad formatting or messiness) was getting in the way of his receiving, accepting and trusting my opinion. Our attention to impression also contributed to those attorneys becoming long-lasting clients.

Today I critique a lot of work product from legal nurse consultants and sometimes my best advice is “Go back and create a new first impression, because if you don’t, you won’t get a second chance with that attorney.” Your legal nurse consulting business, like life, isn’t a video game. You won’t get a mulligan, do-over or a reset button on an attorney-client.

You rarely get a second chance, so make your first impression count for real the first time.

Success Is Inside!

Last week my attorney-client invited me to meet a potential plaintiff at the office of a referring attorney. He needed to catch a flight immediately after this meeting, so we were on a tight schedule. I offered to drive us to the meeting and take him to the airport afterwards, giving me an opportunity to have his undivided attention for a period of time.

This particular attorney-client was my “break-in” client, and the one for whom I still do more than 90% of my work. He has been a very successful attorney in a prominent plaintiff firm for about 20 years, winning big awards for his clients. However, I was growing frustrated with what I felt was his tunnel vision when it came to damages in his cases. I wasn’t sure he was really reading my reports or just picking out what he wanted to see.

As a result, I believed he was missing an opportunity for bigger awards for his clients. During the ride I honestly discussed this, using medical issues from his cases on which I am presently working. He was “blown away” with some of the issues I presented, to which I responded, “Did you not read my report?” At the meeting with the potential plaintiff and referring attorney, my attorney-client introduced me as his nurse expert and “the brains of the team!”

Guest Blogger Profile

Annmarie Johnson, RN, BSN, CLNC owns and operates Bucks Medical-Legal Consulting. She has been a nurse for 26 years, 24 specializing in critical care. Annmarie’s CLNC^® business specializes in construction accidents and products liability.

Citing references and formatting bibliographies are an important aspect of preparing your legal nurse consulting reports. This increases the credibility of the opinions you render to your attorney-clients. Here are seven tips to use when preparing your legal nurse consultant reports.

1. Follow the standard format for presenting references.
   • Textbook
     Schul, Patricia Dwyer. 2010 Nursing Spectrum Drug Handbook, Fifth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009

   • Journal article
     Jahromi, Afshin, Clase, Catherine M., et al. “Progression of Internal Carotid Artery Stenosis in Patientes with Peripheral Arterial Occulusive Disease.” Journal of Vascular Surgery^®. 50(2): Aug 2009, 292-298.
2. Provide a complete reference – including the author’s name, title of the article and journal or title of the book and complete publication information (volume number, page and year for a journal; city, publisher and year for a book). Be sure the publication information is accurate. Make sure your references are complete and accurate.
3. Put book titles and the names of journals in italics. Put article titles in quotation marks and not in italic type. You may be used to seeing the article and even the book titles with only the first words capitalized, but the standard format is to capitalize the first word and all major words in the title of an article or book. Do not capitalize “a,” “the,” “and” and short prepositions (unless they’re the first word in a title). Follow these formatting techniques and your reference list will be easier to read.
4. List your references in alphabetical order by author’s last name. In a reference with multiple authors, alphabetize by the last name of the first author listed. In a reference with no author listed, double check to be sure there’s no author on the work, then alphabetize by the name of the publishing organization.
5. When listing website references, if no author is listed, alphabetize by the name of the organization or title of the site (not by the URL).
6. Be sure website listings are current and correct. If you haven’t used a site in a while, recheck the link to make sure it still works and still takes you to the same information you used in formulating your report.
7. Group references by type of source – for example, textbooks, journal articles, websites.

Success Is Inside!

Even techies make New Year’s Resolutions and promises to themselves. Some even involve important things. My #1 resolution for 2009 – Install and learn Dragon NaturallySpeaking software (the cheap $76.99 Standard Edition). I’ve talked to way too many people who love this software to keep ignoring it. If you’re like me and can think faster than you can type, this is a tool to try.

I know many legal nurse consultants who end up spending more time concentrating on typing (dare I say pecking) their CLNC reports and end up losing those important thoughts before they can get them on paper. Typing wasn’t taught in nursing school, so chances are you’re not going to win any typing contests at 30 words per minute. The average person speaks at about 120 words per minute (those of you who know me figure I’m slightly above that) but I can’t type that fast (well, I can, but with 0% accuracy). This changes the equation.

The demo I saw just blew me away. Once you get used to this software you’ll be dictating all your reports, letters to your attorney-clients, grocery lists, to-dos and to-don’ts. I’m planning on installing this on Vickie’s computer in January. If Vickie can do it, you can do it. I’ll be giving you an update on how well it works and how easy it is to train your computer to recognize your speech patterns.

Be aware this program only works on 32-bit systems (not newer 64-bit systems). So before you buy, on your Windows-based machine: Open the Start menu. Click on Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, then System Information. After the System Summary screen fills look on the right side of the screen for “System Type.” If it shows “x86-based PC” you have a 32-bit computer. If it shows “x64-based PC” you have a 64-bit computer. You can also look at the operating system line – if you are running 64-bit XP it will tell you. Another alternative method is to click the Start button, click on Control Panel, click on System and Maintenance, and then click on System. Under System, you can view the system type – it will tell you if you are running a 64-bit system.

Check back in about six Tuesdays!

Tom

We all have goals of saving money. Do you want to learn a great way to save over $400 in 2009? Save yourself the expense of a dedicated fax line. If you don’t use your fax machine that often, or if you send more faxes than you receive, you can buy a cheap Duplex Wall Jack Adapter ($2.51 on Amazon.com) and plug your phone and fax machine into that adapter.

With the adapter, both your home or office phone and fax machine are on the same line. Next, set your fax machine to “Manual” and call the phone company and cancel the old dedicated line. On the manual setting you can send faxes at any time and the fax won’t answer when your attorney-clients call, your regular answering machine will. If you need to receive a fax, you can activate the fax – but you have to be there to switch it on, which may be inconvenient.

If you want to keep the full functionality of the fax machine, add a Command Communications Comswitch 5500 3-Port Phone/Fax Modem Line Sharing Device ($50.24 from Amazon.com) between the wall and your phone and your fax machine. This neat little device senses the type of incoming call (probably from the fax screech) and directs it to the appropriate device.

You’re probably spending $38/month or better on your dedicated fax line so this system will pay for itself in 2 months!

Now that you’re saving money hand over fist start planning on your next equipment purchase: A Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 ($399 on Amazon.com). This scanner is the size of a Barbie^® Lunch Box and it’s fast. Feed your papers in like a fax. It quickly and easily scans both sides of a document directly to a specific application such as Word^® or Excel^® or, into a searchable PDF for easy filing, emailing or other communication. There’s even one for Mac users!

Now you can start scanning your reports, medical records and other paperwork and clean out those filing cabinets. It also comes with a full version of Adobe^® Acrobat^® which lets you edit your documents after scanning.

Tsukiji Fish Market

This sure beats faxing and is great when you’re sending contracts or other reports to an attorney and don’t want to provide them with the native Word^® document.

See you next Tuesday!

Tom