The Use of Medical Narrative Reports in Serious Injury Cases

Until a few years ago, a plaintiff in a personal injury or serious injury lawsuit had to take the deposition testimony of all treating physicians in order to be able to introduce the deposition for a jury’s consideration. This is because testimony by a doctor without being subject to cross-examination would be considered hearsay and therefore not admissible. To resolve the problem and expense associated with every single plaintiff’s lawyer representing a personal injury claimant having to take medical testimony by way of depositions, and to dispense with the necessity of scheduling doctors’ time to provide such a testimony, the law was changed to provide that medical narrative reports written by a doctor could be introduced into evidence even if the doctor were not subject to cross-examination.
The operative statute is found at O.C.G.A. § 24-3-18. This statute basically states that any report which sets forth in story form the doctor’s assessment of the patient’s history, diagnosis and treatment shall be admissible into evidence. If a written notice is provided to the opposing party attaching the narrative and giving them ample opportunity that a plaintiff’s lawyer, for example, wishes to utilize the report in support of his client’s claims then, in that event, the defense has the right to take the deposition of the doctor at their expense, otherwise the report can come into evidence and be read to the jury without having to have the doctor’s testimony sworn and deposed before a court reporter.
The advantages of the medical narrative statute are obvious. First, the plaintiff, who is already injured and may not have any income, no longer has to pay for the deposition of a doctor. When dealing with a surgeon for example, an hourly deposition fee might be $500.00 per hour, not to mention the cost of the court reporter whose job it is to transcribe it. If the deposition is videotaped so that it can be shown to the jury, yet another expense is involved. In short, it is not uncommon for there to be a $1,500.00 expense in connection with taking a surgeon’s deposition. If the same surgeon, however, writes a narrative report and charges $250.00 for the time he takes to dictate and narrate the report, then in that event, the medical narrative is admissible and the expense of deposing the doctor would then shift to the defense if they wish to depose him further in connection with his report.
In some cases, a well written medical narrative report is more than sufficient to help establish before the jury the nature and extent of the plaintiff’s damages. In other cases, even though the medical narrative statute exists, it may still be better practice for the plaintiff’s lawyer to take the testimony of the doctor so that the doctor might be permitted to elaborate upon his opinions. Nonetheless, the medical narrative statute is an improvement in the law and should be utilized by counsel in the appropriate case.
The only qualification that one must be aware of when utilizing a medical narrative report is that the report itself must actually qualify as a medical narrative report in order to be admissible into evidence. Utilizing contemporaneous doctor’s notes or operative reports which contain technical medical terms may not be sufficient to qualify under the medical narrative statute since the report does not set forth in story form the doctor’s assessment of the plaintiff’s condition. The law authorizes the admission of those reports which sets forth the relevant information in language that is more understandable to a lay jury than would an office note or record dictated by the doctor not for use by a jury but rather for use by other doctors and practitioners in the medical field. With this one qualification, however, medical narrative reports are an improvement in the rules of procedure and allow for juries to consider medical opinion testimony without the accompanying deposition costs and expenses which, in the past, have caused claimants to incur significant litigation expenses merely to present their claims.