A letter from a law firm
A patient was treated after a car accident, and their solicitor has written asking for a copy of the clinical records. The same week, an insurer asks for treatment dates and invoices, and a patient emails asking for their own notes. Each request arrives in a different format, one by post, one by email, one through the website contact form.
Someone has to check who is asking, whether the patient has authorised it, what exactly is being requested, gather the notes, any letters and invoices, redact anything that should not go, and send it securely. It is done carefully, because it matters, and that is exactly why it takes days.
Why requests take so long
- There is no single log, so requests are tracked in the inbox.
- The checks needed before release are known to the owner but not written down as steps.
- Records live in several places: clinic software notes, attachments, paper archives, invoices in accounts software.
- Assembling a complete, readable file is a manual copy and paste exercise.
- Nobody records exactly what was sent, which matters if the request is later questioned.
Some clinics also produce short medico-legal reports for personal injury cases, which adds a separate, fee-earning strand of work to the same inbox.
What the delay costs
| Request type | What goes wrong without a process |
|---|---|
| Patient's own request | Time limits under data protection rules can be missed |
| Solicitor request | Authority not checked properly, or delays that frustrate the patient's claim |
| Insurer request | Payment for treatment held up while details are awaited |
| Medico-legal report | Fee-earning work delayed, invoices not raised |
What the law requires for each kind of request is a matter for your clinic and your adviser. A process makes sure the steps you decide on are followed and recorded.
How we build the request workflow
- Every request, whatever channel it arrives through, is logged with the requester, the patient, what is asked for and the date received.
- The log shows the deadline your policy sets for that request type and counts down.
- A checklist for each request type, written with you, prompts the checks you require: identity, signed authority, scope of the request.
- Once checks are complete, the system gathers the relevant notes, attachments and invoices from your clinic software and accounts package into a single, ordered PDF for review.
- A person reviews the file and marks any redactions before release. Nothing is sent without that review.
- The file is sent by the secure method you choose, and the log records exactly what was sent, to whom and when.
- For medico-legal reports, the log tracks the report, the fee agreed and the invoice.
After the change
Requests are visible in one list with their deadlines. The checks happen every time because they are steps, not memory. Assembling a file takes minutes instead of an afternoon. And the clinic has a clean record of what was released, which protects everyone if a question arises later.
Patterns become visible too. If most requests come from a handful of firms, or if insurer requests always ask for the same set of documents, the checklist and file assembly can be tuned for those, making the common case quicker still.
The owner no longer has to be the only person who knows how to handle a solicitor's letter. A trained receptionist can take a request most of the way, with the owner reviewing only the final file.
You might need this if
- Records requests are tracked in email threads.
- Only one person knows how to process them.
- Assembling notes and invoices for a request takes hours.
- You do not keep a record of exactly what was sent.
- Medico-legal work and its invoices are hard to keep track of.