Personal Injury Case File Checklist From Intake to Settlement

Intake sets the quality of everything after it. Record the date of loss, the venue, the adverse party, the insurer and the claim number before the client leaves the room. Note the statute of limitations date and put it on the firm calendar the same day.

Get the signed retainer and medical authorisations. Send preservation letters for scene photographs, vehicle data and surveillance footage. Footage is overwritten fast. Ask the client to bring the insurance card, the tow receipt, the emergency room discharge papers and every photograph on their phone. Those items vanish from handsets within weeks.

Open the file with a contact sheet. It names the client, the spouse or guardian, the employer and every person who saw the injury happen.

Every claim has a chain of providers. Emergency room, imaging centre, orthopaedist, physiotherapist, pharmacy. Give each one a row with the first visit, the last visit and the date you requested records. Keep one sheet per provider listing the billing office, the records department and a named contact. Three departments usually answer for one clinic.

Gaps matter a great deal. An adjuster reads a three week silence between visits as a recovered client. Ask the client why each gap happened and write the answer on the file.

Chase records on a rhythm, not when you remember. A request that goes unanswered after two weeks needs a second letter. Log both. A pharmacy printout and a physiotherapy attendance log often fill the gaps that the physician’s chart leaves. Request them even when the client thinks the visits were minor.

Liens decide what the client takes home. Health insurers, government payers and treating doctors may all claim a share. Open a lien log when the first bill arrives, not when the cheque does. Hospital liens, health plan reimbursement claims and government payer recoveries each follow their own notice and appeal steps, so the log should note which route applies to which claimant.

Each line needs the claimant, the amount asserted, the date of the notice and the status of any reduction request. A lien you never heard about still binds the file. Ask for an itemised payoff letter in writing. Verbal figures change.

Check the log against every provider row. If a provider treated on a letter of protection, the lien exists even if no notice has come.

A demand package reflects the file behind it. Pull the records, the itemised bills, the wage loss letter from the employer and dated photographs of the injury as it healed. Wage loss deserves its own tab, with the employer’s letter, pay stubs for the quarter before the injury and the doctor’s note that took the client off work.

Write the treatment chronology from your provider rows. Put the bills in a single table with the billed total at the bottom. Keep the narrative short. Adjusters skim. Cite page numbers from the records in the chronology so that the adjuster can verify each claim in under a minute without calling your office.

Send the package with a response deadline and log the date. Diary a follow-up call. Record every offer and counteroffer, along with which adjuster or supervisor made it. If the adjuster goes quiet, send a short reminder that quotes the original deadline and attaches nothing new.

When an offer lands, the file should answer three questions at once. What are the net proceeds, which liens come out first and what does the client owe in costs? Build that sheet before you call the client, not after.

Hold settlement funds in the client account until every lien is paid or resolved in writing. Then issue the disbursement statement, get it signed and send the release. The disbursement statement should list the gross figure, each cost advanced, the fee, every lien paid and the net, so the client can check every line.

Close with a review. Note what delayed the case, which provider was slow and which record was missing. Copy the best demand letter into a template folder for the next file. Archive the file only after the last cheque clears and the limitation diary entry has been cleared by a second person.