Even if one were to set aside compliance, security and privacy regulations, record retrieval is a time-consuming and tedious task. Litigation and claims professionals already are often overworked and stretched just focusing on their responsibilities required to adjudicate claims effectively without adding the time and tedium of requesting records. In requesting records the saying “Time is Money” has never been more meaningful.

Record retrieval is an important and time sensitive process. It is critical that you have the utmost confidence that your record retrieval partner is functioning in a neutral environment with privacy and integrity as a priority. You want to ensure that the company performing data collection doesn’t have hidden agendas that could be prejudicial or detrimental to service, quality, your case or to the claimant. . When researching potential options for a records retrieval partner, here are four hidden agendas to be aware of:

It’s impossible to avoid the world of social media today and it’s impact on legal proceedings is significant. In fact, over 90% of litigators consider it a best practice to use web and social media content as evidence or research for a case. According to Pew Research Center, the median American uses three social media platforms. Facebook and Youtube dominate the charts, with nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults using Youtube and roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults reported as being Facebook users Other platforms including Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Linkedin and Pinterest follow closely behind. While these are the platforms making headlines, there are many others that may not garner the same quantity of users but should not be dismissed when collecting records that could help confirm or dispute case facts.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a Specialist at T-Scan.”

“Oh, okay…what does that mean?

This is routinely how a conversation goes when we tell people what we do here at T-Scan. In its simplest terms, you could say a Specialist is an account manager: we are liaisons between our clients and the company.

Privacy has always been important to people. It’s why people close their blinds, tint the windows in their car, or shred their mail before disposing of it. However, as technology evolves and continues to reshape the tools used to process, transfer, and store information, the ways in which we need to think about privacy are becoming more complex.