A rocky start for investors in 2016
During the first two weeks of 2016, investors in the stock market suffered a sudden and painful decline. Some call it historic for both its speed and its voracity. The images most of us have of traders in lab coats with large identification letters on the front are probably from the New York Stock Exchange or NYSE. Those traders handle buying and selling in an auction-like setting, typically using hand signals or shouting at the specialist designed to represent the stocks being traded. There is a physical building in lower Manhattan where this takes place every day.
In contrast, there is the NASDAQ, which stands for the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System. The NASDAQ, (now formally called the NASD by the National Association of Securities Dealers) unlike the NYSE is not a physical exchange, although it handles over 2 BILLION transactions per day.
From Investopedia.com: Instead of being an auction market, the NASDAQ is a communications network between thousands of computers. Instead of brokers issuing orders, market makers put their names on a list of buyers and sellers, which the NASDAQ then distributes in a fraction of a second to thousands of other computers. If you want to buy a NASDAQ-listed stock, your broker will either call a market maker with your trade information or enter his order into a Nasdaq-sponsored online execution system.
The analogy with the practice of law
Just as the market for corporate securities trading has come a long way in the last 40-50 years, so has the process for legal professionals. The easiest observation to look back on is the physical space that documents consume in and for legal practices. There were literally (and in some cases remain) entire warehouses full of documents related to cases settled long ago, and rather than risk throwing away a piece of paper that had testimonials, agreements, signatures, and the like, companies piled up the boxes above. and more, occupying expensive square feet in office buildings. Eventually, many would resign themselves to a remote, off-site location where barcode scanners and wireless handheld devices could track their contents in the event of a sudden need to produce a document.
In recent years, like stock exchanges, there have been significant advances in both technology and court acceptance of alternative evidence besides paper. The advent of electronic discovery meant that customer data stored in computer databases had the same evidence as the paper it replaced. Lawyers would no longer have to show up in court with boxes of paper to support their case. Instead, a summary of what existed in a file could be used in the pre-trial phase and, if necessary, a quick reprint of computer databases could be done.
Paper to Digital Assets
While there are some areas where paper is required, i.e. contract signing, acknowledgment of receipt of goods or services, and/or notification of HIPAA guidelines, these documents are now also stored in computerized repositories using document scanning tools. high speed, which can add barcodes. and other tags and labels to help generate an index per case. Maintaining all related assets, including scanned documents and images, emails, and other electronic information related to a specific case, is often referred to as subject matter centrality. In a nutshell, instead of storing information alphabetically by customer, it is now possible and often preferred to associate ALL electronic data with the matter for which it is applied for in order to simply review, check status and manage appropriately.
Legal Practice Workflow
Workflow is often a fancy term for what is simply a process. How the firm, either because of its areas of practice and/or to be in compliance with the legal regulations on the matter, needs to create a workflow. This typically begins with incorporating or gathering the facts of the matter from the client, creating a case file with contact information for all relevant parties, and any additional information including medical reports, police reports, insurance information, to begin with. . the process to litigate the matter.
Much of this becomes routine as technology improves and is adopted, and when bottlenecks are discovered, there needs to be a review of the process to minimize or avoid future bottlenecks that may delay the progress of the case and its eventual outcome. closing.
office resources
While it can vary depending on the size of the firm, the number of locations, and the magnitude of the legal matters being investigated, there is generally a 1:1 ratio of attorneys to staff. This staff may include a paralegal, office assistant, billing coordinator, and/or other resources employed to help the attorneys, whose time generates revenue for the firm, focus on doing billable work. This works well in very small or individual firms or, on the contrary, in very large firms, where human capital can be shared between lawyers.
Information Collection Outsourcing
While not technically a bottleneck, collecting information from third parties such as hospitals, physicians, labs, and other providers of healthcare-related information can be a daunting task and is simply not a practical option when working with personal injury, medical malpractice and/or wrong types of cases. Imagine a class action lawsuit against a medical device manufacturer that has injured hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Collecting every one of those record “orders” would be the equivalent of someone trying to trade high-volume stocks like Microsoft or Starbucks before the advent of computers on stock trading floors. It just breaks the workflow.
Those cases have created a cottage industry where knowledgeable professionals often call Medical Records Recovery Specialists (or MRR for short) have the technology and often the right forms, contacts and relationships with healthcare providers to respond to the request and respond faster and without using the aforementioned law office human resources.
And, because these professionals deal with this topic day in and day out, the workflow they are able to provide to the legal practice is much more efficient, resulting in lower costs for the firm and a hard cost bill that can be considered a recoverable expense. In addition, the MRR must be versed in the most current documents required by state and federal HIPAA compliance regulations and the most recent HITECH laws.
Summary
Over 100 years ago, a group of gentlemen would gather under a tree in New York City where they would trade various commodities, stocks, and bank notes. Later, that process would be superseded by a machine called a ticker, which allowed traders to enjoy the comfortable surroundings of their offices while keeping track of their investments and transactions. It would be another 40 years before terminals, a keyboard, and a CRT display would allow personalized transactions to be made through a central computer located in a raised-floor room somewhere off-site. Today, these transactions can be done with a smartphone and a cellular signal or WiFi connection.
These same advancements are making progress in both the legal and medical fields, making it easier and more efficient to practice those arts, remain competitive with other firms, and improve your chances of success. Incorporating the use of outsourced medical record retrieval providers, with secure, web-accessible, cloud-based, front-line software applications, lowers costs, reduces risks of non-compliance, and maintains office workflow. fast moving lawyers. and without problems.