Lindsay Clancy, who was charged in the January 2023 deaths of her three children, has been the subject of intense media coverage, and most of what you read debates her innocence or guilt. However, her trial, which ended in a mistrial in September, has highlighted just how crucial accurate, comprehensive medical records can be to a case. While the Clancy case is a criminal trial, her medical records have been central to both the prosecution and the defense, as each side has tried to use the contents of those records to prove their point. In civil cases, such as personal injury cases, these records can be just as vital, but for different reasons.
This post takes no position on Lindsay’s guilt or the care she received, and both the criminal and civil cases remain unresolved. But testimony in the trial showed that records can fall short in two ways: some never reach the providers treating a patient, and some that do exist can read in more than one way. Both problems matter in personal injury and disability cases.
What the Trial Showed About Fragmented Care
Over roughly four months, Lindsay was treated by at least a psychiatric nurse practitioner, a psychiatrist, and two hospitals. Testimony indicated that those providers often lacked one another’s records.
Dr. Jennifer Tufts, her psychiatrist in 14 telehealth sessions, testified on Aug. 10 that she did not obtain records from other providers treating Lindsay, including South Shore’s perinatal behavioral health program. Asked why, she said, “I did not feel like it was necessary, because she provided all the relevant information.” Tufts said HIPAA constrained her but conceded she could have requested authorization forms to obtain Lindsay’s treatment history. She also testified that she learned of the January hospitalization only after Lindsay was discharged. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington criticized her decision not to seek records from other providers.
Another provider, psychiatric nurse practitioner Rebecca Jollotta, testified that she never spoke with Tufts or accessed her records, never spoke with anyone at the Rhode Island hospital that admitted Lindsay, and didn’t have Lindsay’s McLean Hospital records. She agreed it mattered but said she never found out.
The Importance of Electronic Health Records
Electronic health records (EHRs) can allow multiple providers to have access to much of a patient’s health records. From seeing what medications other providers have prescribed to the tests they have ordered and the results of those tests, EHRs allow for a more integrated approach to an individual’s healthcare.
But connected doesn’t mean complete. The testimony in the Clancy trial points to four ways gaps remain:
- Different systems: Care delivered outside a shared system won’t appear in it, and providers on separate EHRs may never see each other’s records.
- Paper: Not every provider uses an EHR. A provider still on paper takes longer to retrieve from, and its records won’t appear in an EHR return at all.
- Extra protections on sensitive records: HIPAA generally lets providers share health information with each other for treatment, but requires patient authorization for psychotherapy notes. Psychotherapy notes are narrowly defined and don’t include medications, diagnoses, or treatment summaries. Massachusetts law separately requires written consent before disclosing HIV test results or genetic information.
- Nobody asked: Access isn’t a request. Shared data only helps if someone looks, and a separate authorization only helps if someone asks for it.
The Clancy case highlights an important point: EHRs are only as useful as the effort providers put into using them. More consistent recordkeeping and record sharing might have reduced holes in the records of Lindsay’s care, including multiple providers prescribing her medications with no clear record of what else she was taking. But even well-maintained records only help if providers actually request them, and in this case, testimony indicates some did not.
How can incomplete notes distort a patient’s clinical history?
Incomplete notes distort a patient’s clinical history in many ways. Dangerous gaps in care continuity, obscured vital baseline data, and unverified or outdated information shown as active medical facts are just a few of the potential pitfalls.
These problems can result in:
- duplicate testing
- delayed or missed diagnoses
- preventable medication interactions
- drug allergies being overlooked
- medication dosage changes that aren’t tracked
In a best-case scenario, care teams don’t know whether a patient’s condition is newly emerging, stable, or resolving because there is no clear narrative trail. In the worst case, the patient’s care is compromised so much that it can give rise to a medical malpractice claim.
The Civil Side: When Medical Records Make or Break a Case
Both Lindsay Clancy and her ex-husband Patrick have filed civil cases against several of her healthcare providers. Both cases allege that the providers failed to properly diagnose, treat, and monitor Lindsay’s condition, despite her repeated attempts to get them to do so. Patrick Clancy also alleges that this failure exacerbated Lindsay’s health issues. The nature of these allegations means that Lindsay’s medical records will be the most critical evidence in these cases.
In personal injury cases, there is often other evidence that helps prove liability, including photos and videos of accident scenes, witness statements, expert witnesses, and police reports. However, while those other pieces of evidence are essential to proving liability, an injured client’s medical records will still be the most crucial evidence. This documentation proves that the injury exists, how severe it is, and what it will take to get the client back to their pre-accident physical condition. In cases of permanent injuries, those same records prove the permanence of the injuries.
How do documentation gaps affect expert interpretation and juries?
When your case requires an expert witness, they rely on the medical records you provide to form their conclusions. Documentation voids create a credibility vulnerability, causing the expert to look unprepared or biased. When there are holes in the documentation, the expert is forced to bridge those openings with assumptions that may be accurate but are also unprovable. This can create an analytical gap between the raw facts of the case and the conclusions they’ve come to, which can be challenged. During cross-examination, the defense will focus on missing notes, logs, test results, or other missing records to further frame your expert as unprepared, inexperienced, unaware, or biased.
With or without expert testimony, juries may view missing documentation as intentional concealment or negligence, even when the omission is unintentional. Record discrepancies or perceived sloppiness can cause jurors to lose trust in your overall case, reducing both your credibility and potential damage awards. Additionally, without official records, some jurors rely on their own intuition, personal biases, or the most compelling closing argument to interpret complex actions they don’t understand.
Why Clear and Accurate Records Are Critical
Incomplete, smeared, or inaccurate records can reduce the value of a case. If the missing or inaccurate information is vital, it can even cost you the case. A medical record retrieval service can’t correct a provider’s documentation errors, but it can ensure the documents your firm receives are clean, complete, and legible, so a technical or administrative failure on the retrieval end doesn’t cost you records or cast doubt on their accuracy.
How a Single Word Can Change Everything
Lindsay Clancy’s psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Tufts, took notes while she was treating Lindsay. While those notes were originally meant to help the doctor and other providers track how Lindsay was feeling, what medications she was taking, and other details about her mental health, they ultimately played a pivotal role in a highly publicized criminal trial. The reason? A single word she left out.
Tufts wrote a note that read, “not hyper, pressured speech.” Pressured speech is often used as an indicator when diagnosing mania. Lindsay’s defense attorney, Kevin Reddington, interpreted the note as saying that Lindsay was exhibiting pressured speech. However, Tufts testified she meant to write “not hyper, not pressured speech.” She also said she knew what her note meant, even though the note was written more than three years ago.
While the psychiatrist may know what her note meant, this error highlights the determinative nature of medical records. Lawyers for both sides can use missing, ambiguous, or messy records to try to drive the story for their side. The ambiguity of a record, or the lack of one, leaves the story open to interpretation, and that interpretation may not be in your favor.
Records that arrive fully organized and OCR’d give you the best chance to identify these errors, follow up with the providers when needed, and prepare for how to handle the error as you negotiate or plan for court.
Why can records be used years later for questions they weren’t made for?
Even if someone is planning to file a personal injury case while undergoing treatment after a car accident, slip and fall, or other accident, their medical records are not created for legal use. Medical records are intended to track the patient’s health, care, and progress, ensuring continuous treatment and appropriate care.
However, when someone does file a lawsuit, these records often come into use as evidence. They can be used to answer questions in a lawsuit that they were never intended for because of their objective, unalterable nature. They provide a clear snapshot of the client’s condition at that point in time, eliminating the need to rely on memory, which can become unreliable when a client’s claim is negotiated or litigated years after the accident. These records can be used to answer questions such as the origin of an injury, how current health compares with old baselines (showing whether disabilities are temporary or permanent), or the difference between a pre-existing condition and its aggravation.
How EHRs Impact Your Case
Everything above comes back to a practical question for your firm: How do you make sure the record you build a case on is as complete as it can be? In a personal injury case, EHRs can allow firms to get medical records more quickly than through traditional medical record retrieval. Attorneys get more time to review the records, identify any additional providers that may have been missed, and begin building a strong case. Whether you settle a case or take it to court, earlier receipt of medical records is a huge benefit.
You should flag and follow up on any unexplained gaps, missing records, or unclear documentation right away. EHRs can give your firm more time to catch these issues early, since records typically arrive faster than through traditional retrieval methods. But an EHR return might be a starting point, not a finished record. Not every provider uses EHRs, so a gap in the records you receive may mean the missing information is coming from a provider still relying on paper records, which can take longer to retrieve. It may also mean a provider uses a different system, or that the records fall into a category that has to be requested separately. The sooner you identify this missing information and submit follow-up requests, the better positioned you’ll be.
A few ways to close those gaps:
- Build the provider list from your client, not the records. Ask about every provider, including specialists, therapists, urgent care centers, and private practices. One system’s records won’t list all of them.
- Request separately what the file only mentions. If a record references a provider or facility that isn’t in the file, that’s a lead.
- Ask whether restricted categories matter to the claim. If they do, plan for separate requests and patient authorization.
A gap in your records doesn’t always mean nothing happened. Sometimes it means nobody asked.
Records On Time Is Ready to Help
Lindsay Clancy’s trial has ended in a mistrial, and her future is undecided until all sides can agree on the next step. While her case remains unresolved, your clients don’t have to face that same uncertainty. Your clients count on you to give them a more certain and positive outcome in their personal injury or disability cases. Many factors are out of your control, including the level of detail in a provider’s records, third-party cooperation, and your client’s actions.
Medical record retrieval doesn’t have to add to that uncertainty. Records On Time can’t change what a provider documents or whether another provider requested a record, but we can make your requests faster and your results easier to use. You can expect that most EHRs arrive within 24 hours, and traditional retrieval usually delivers records within 21 days. The medical records you’ll receive will be clean, clear, organized, and OCR-ready, so you can quickly find what you’re looking for, identify gaps or missing information, and begin building your case. We charge a flat-rate fee per request and have no contracts or long-term commitments. We also integrate with most case management systems (CMS), allowing you to submit your request directly within your CMS with no extra effort. Contact us today to book a demo or get started.
