Dawn Cook was featured as a guest speaker at the pre-track forum of the American Association of Legal Nurse Consultants (AALNC) Annual Forum held in Louisville, Kentucky on April 4, 2019. Dawn’s session on “Analyzing Past Medical Bills: Do you know what you need to know?” was a well-attended session at the Forum. Dawn’s presentation outlined that plaintiff and defense attorneys often need a complete analysis of the past medical bills in medical malpractice and personal injury cases. Attendees learned how to prepare reports for consulting and testifying work.

Dawn’s methodology consists of three steps. The first step is to compare the bills to the medical records to verify if the bills are actually related to the accident in question. The second step is to compare the medical records to the codes in the bills, to see if the codes are correct, that there is no up-coding, un-bundling of codes or charging for excessive surgical assistants. The third step is research the usual, reasonable and customary cost (URC) for each and every charge, in the geographic area where the care was given. Dawn also covered expert report preparation, how to document your qualifications, methodology, and how to show your research was covered.

Dawn does both plaintiff and defense life care planning and has completed over 500 damage reports in 27 states.  She has qualified as an expert in life care planning in Federal Court in Illinois and New Mexico, and at State Court in California, Nevada and New Mexico. Dawn has also qualified in State Court in Nevada as a Past Medical Bill Review expert witness.