A medicolegal report is a legal document written by a specialist doctor who has independently assessed a patient with injuries in their applicable field. Courts and lawyers use these reports to determine the outcome of a client's case.

Timely and accurate reports are extremely important in legal proceedings, but they are often delayed by factors that lawyers can easily avoid.

Read below about some common referral mistakes and find guidance and reassurance on how to book an efficient medicolegal examination.

Typical Turnaround Times for Medicolegal Reports

At Azure Medicolegal, we have a standard turnaround time of 14 days. Some cases can take longer, such as if a client has complex injuries. When you schedule the appointment, our admin team will generally confirm within 1–2 business days. Depending on the specific doctor you want to assess your patient and prepare the medicolegal report, a longer wait time may be applicable.

If you need an urgent report, we can arrange this with advance notice. Urgent reports will incur an extra fee.

Common referral pitfalls

Late Enclosures: All enclosures should be sent through to the Azure administration team 1 week before the assessment date. We have a strict deadline of 72 hours before an appointment. If we don’t have all applicable enclosures before 72 hours, the appointment will be cancelled and rescheduled for a later date.

This is vital because enclosures include hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages that the doctor is obliged to read and understand before an appointment.

Last-minute changes/add-ons: Doctors need to receive ALL applicable documentation at least 72 hours before an appointment. If not, they will simply not have time to read through the enclosures.

If you need to send through further information for the doctor to consider after the appointment is complete, you will need to book a new appointment. Enclosures sent after an appointment will not be considered.

Irrelevant Documentation: Sometimes we receive over 3,000 pages of enclosures for a single case. Most of the time, the majority of these pages are not relevant to the assessing doctor's specialty. This will incur an additional fee and just isn’t necessary.

If something is outside a specialist's clinical scope of practice, they are prohibited from considering it in an assessment. We advise lawyers to only send through documentation that is relevant to a doctor’s specialty.

Enclosures totalling more than 500 pages will incur an additional fee. 500 pages of enclosures will take roughly 3–5 hours to review, so providing thousands of pages of documents is rarely the best use of your doctor's time.

Tips for sending documents

The best way you can ensure faster and smoother report preparation is to only provide relevant enclosures.

For example, for an orthopaedic assessment:

The following records are typically relevant:

• Initial assessment following injury (such as from an ED, GP, or physiotherapist)
• Specialist referral letters
• Surgical operation records
• Discharge summaries
• Affidavits
• Radiology reports and images
• Documentation of any pre-existing complaints (specific GP entries, rather than entire clinical records)

In contrast, the following records are typically not relevant:

• Psychiatric and psychological assessment records
• Historical GP records that do not mention the injured body part or region
• Sexual and reproductive health records
• Prescription history
• Blood pressure screening records
• Blood test results
• ICU assessment documents

If you are not sure what is relevant for the specialty you need, contact us for guidance.

Why does this matter?

Document review is one of the most critical parts of the assessment process. As per medicolegal guidelines, doctors must consider all documentation presented by lawyers before assessing a patient. Sending thousands of pages of enclosures is not the best use of the doctor’s time, as it takes them hours to read through these documents and determine which are relevant to their field of expertise and which are not.

Too many pages of irrelevant documentation can sometimes lead to doctors missing important information because of the sheer amount provided.

Conclusion

Thorough preparation leads to smoother processes, faster reports and better outcomes. By following the above guidance, the process will be more efficient for all parties involved. If you have any confusion or are unsure of what is applicable to your case, please contact our administration team and they will be able to guide you.