For MDL and mass-tort defense coordination — pilot-led physician screening of claimant medical records under a consistent, counsel-defined framework with source-linked findings and quality controls.
Per-plaintiff medical claim evaluation using a consistent analytical framework — identifying which plaintiff records present the strongest medical cases, which are most vulnerable to defense medical challenges, and where clinical foundation or methodology concerns may require counsel and expert review across the plaintiff pool.
The same physician screening methodology can support defense coordination, but scale is not promised before a paid representative pilot establishes record burden, escalation frequency, quality controls, and a realistic monthly file cap.
Pilot scope: From $5,000 for protocol calibration and a representative cohort. Production pricing and a hard monthly capacity cap are confirmed only after the pilot.
Volume pricing: Per-record rates for large plaintiff pools. Monthly capacity arrangements available.
Institutional terms: Net 30 invoice terms. Retainer arrangements for ongoing defense coordination.
Bellwether Defense Medical Screening is an enterprise workflow for structured review across a defined claimant cohort. The value lies in consistent criteria, source-linked findings, escalation rules, and quality control—not in claiming that one reviewer can process unlimited volume or decide legal representativeness.
Mass-tort and MDL records create two separate tasks. High-volume extraction identifies diagnoses, exposure facts, treatment, and claimed injury. Physician adjudication then determines how those facts fit a case-specific medical rubric. Combining both layers at physician rates is inefficient; treating automated or low-cost extraction as clinical judgment is unreliable.
The service therefore begins with a paid pilot. Counsel and Medisprudence define the medical questions, inclusion/exclusion logic, evidence thresholds, scoring rules, and escalation cases. Throughput and disagreement are measured before any larger commitment.
Counsel defines the legal purpose, target population, inclusion rules, medical variables, and escalation questions before any case is scored.
A controlled sample tests record quality, extraction burden, clinical ambiguity, and whether the proposed rubric produces useful distinctions.
Cases are screened under the same framework, disagreements are categorized, source citation is audited, and the protocol is revised before scale.
Only after validation are broader findings summarized, with denominators, missing-data limits, exceptions, and matters requiring individual expert review.
The protocol cannot be built from generic “strength of claim” language. It requires a case-specific definition of exposure, injury, timing, exclusion, and the intended use of the results.
The initial engagement is designed to prove the workflow before scale is promised.
The rubric, record quality, extraction burden, escalation rate, and consistency cannot be responsibly priced or scaled without testing representative cases.
No. Chronology and extraction may be inputs. The physician layer applies a defined clinical framework and resolves medical relevance and uncertainty.
It can provide medical characteristics and vulnerabilities. Legal representativeness and strategic selection remain with counsel and other experts.
The protocol can include duplicate review, source-citation audits, disagreement categories, and calibration meetings before broader rollout.