A personal injury case settles at the speed of its slowest document. This checklist covers every item a settlement-ready file must contain, in the order the case produces them, and which team owns each one. Use it to audit any open case: the first missing item is where your delay lives.
1. The Letter of Protection
Owner: attorney's office. The founding document of the file, the attorney's commitment that the provider's bills are paid from the settlement. Confirm the executed copy is in the file and visible to the facility, not sitting in an email thread.
2. Referral and intake record
Owner: attorney's office and front desk. The record of the patient being sent to the facility, with expected arrival, and the facility's confirmation of arrival. This anchors the case timeline and is the first thing reviewed when dates are questioned.
3. Medical records of treatment
Owner: ER facility. The clinical documentation of examination and treatment. These records substantiate every dollar on the bill, and they are protected health information, so they belong in a system designed around HIPAA safeguards with role-based access, not in a fax tray.
4. Itemized bill
Owner: billing team. Not a summary total: an itemized statement tying each charge to the treatment record. Incomplete or unitemized bills are among the most common reasons files bounce back from review.
5. Notarized affidavit of records and billing
Owner: notary team. The sworn affidavit that makes records and bills court-ready. Track when it went to the notary, when it was stamped, and when it returned; this loop is the most frequently lost hand-off in the entire case.
6. Verification and approval record
Owner: supervisor. The internal review confirming every document above is present and correct, with a named reviewer and a timestamp. If a document is rejected, the rejection must carry a reason and an owner, or the file stalls silently.
7. Settlement offer
Owner: attorney's office. The offer sent on the complete, verified file, with its date and amount recorded in the case, not in a side conversation.
8. Signed acceptance
Owner: ER facility. The facility's signed acceptance of the offer. Capture it digitally and file it with the case; a missing acceptance letter can hold up disbursement after everything else is done.
9. Payment record
Owner: billing team. The final entry: payment received, amount, and date, logged the day it arrives. This closes the file and gives you a true time-to-payment number for the case.
The audit question: for every open case, each of these nine items should be either present, or assigned to a named owner with a current status. Anything else is where the case is quietly aging.
Putting the checklist to work
Keeping nine documents complete across three offices is exactly the problem SettleTrack exists to solve: one shared record, live stage tracking, notarization and verification loops with owners and reasons. Read how ER facilities get paid faster, see the full workflow, or request a demo to watch a complete file come together on a live case.