I am San Diego, California-based personal injury attorney Mark C. Blane and I enjoy what I do for a living, which is helping injured accident victims against the insurance companies.
I began my legal career helping ordinary folks obtain justice for the injuries they suffered due to the negligence of others. I went to law school knowing I did not want to represent corporate inter- ests. I wanted to be able to look a client in the eyes and help them in their time of need. The last time I checked, you cannot look a corporate/insurance company client in the eyes. That was one of my reasons for not wanting to practice insurance defense law.
If you or someone you know has been injured in any type of accident, I want you to know that you have my sympathy. As an injured accident victim myself, I understand the pain and feeling of helplessness that comes with being in an accident. I also under- stand the journey to recovery first hand.
A lot of medical professionals and injured clients of mine have asked me where I got the information for this book. If the insur- ance companies have secretive computer programs, how come I know so much about them? They must not be that secretive! The answer is simple: I sought out mavericks in the industry who have litigated such cases to have access to this information—informa- tion the media does not report to the general public. This book is about the computer programs (collectively known and refer- enced in this book as “Colossus”), how they work and how they are used by various insurance companies. The information mainly comes from the following sources:
• Dissatisfied former insurance adjusters;
• Defense counsel;
• Information leaked out from insurance “bad faith” trials, discovery requests and depositions on how Colossus is used, tuned and analyzed. Testimony from these trials comes from insurance claims adjusters with Colossus experience as well as from injured victims. Lawyers handling these cases have also obtained much information on the use and advocacy of Colossus through the years;
• Medical and legal “mavericks” in their respective industry paving the way for more information and insight to become available on Colossus.
Thus, I tuned my attention and my research to “those in the know.” I also asked the right questions, and began using sound techniques to document my injured clients’ personal injury cases. This led me to many discussions with doctors and medi- cal professionals on what they were doing to document these cases for Colossus. I then came up with my own “road map” and began holding monthly seminars educating medical profession- als on becoming better and more detailed medical documenters, emphasizing the importance of not overlooking certain details in an injury case. Remember, if it is not in your medical findings or report, it can’t come into evidence in the case.
Read this book cover to cover and you will have all the insight you need to make a difference in your patients’ injury cases. You can find on my website on the sidebar of this webpage, and it is titled: "How to Document Your Patient's Personal Injury Case from A-Z"
