What questions should a medical malpractice intake form ask?
A medical malpractice intake form should ask what type of provider was involved, what kind of incident occurred, whether a second opinion has been obtained, whether medical records have been requested or are already available, and whether the provider has been notified. Documentation status is the distinguishing feature: unlike a personal injury intake, which turns on fault and third-party insurance, malpractice screening depends heavily on whether the records that would show what happened have been requested yet. The form should also capture when the care occurred, because malpractice matters carry different filing deadlines than ordinary negligence claims.
Updated August 3, 2026 by CaseMetric
The five questions that do the most work
- ✓Provider type — hospital, physician, specialist, or nursing facility — this often determines which rules and immunities apply
- ✓Incident type — surgical error, misdiagnosis, birth injury, medication error, or other
- ✓Second opinion — whether another provider has already reviewed the care
- ✓Medical records — whether they have been requested, and whether the person already has them
- ✓Provider notified — whether the person has raised it with the provider, the hospital, or their insurer
Why documentation status is the whole game
A malpractice inquiry that arrives as “I think my surgeon made a mistake” is not evaluable. Whether it is worth an attorney's time depends on facts the person was never asked for. And critically, a claim with no records and no second opinion is not necessarily a weak claim — at the intake stage it is simply unknown.
That distinction only exists if the form asks. Without it, a firm cannot tell the difference between a matter that has been ruled out and a matter that nobody has looked at yet, so both get the same generic follow-up.
Evidence options should be medical, not physical
The evidence a malpractice matter turns on is documentary. The list should read: medical records requested or available, second opinion obtained, imaging or lab results, discharge instructions, written correspondence with the provider, and whether additional treatment was required to correct the problem.
Photos, witnesses, and police reports — the standard personal injury evidence list — are close to useless here, and showing them tells the visitor the firm does not really handle these cases.
Timing, asked plainly
The form should capture when the care occurred. Malpractice claims are frequently governed by different deadlines than ordinary negligence, sometimes running from discovery of the injury rather than the date of treatment. The intake should collect the date so an attorney can assess it — it should never attempt to tell the visitor whether they are time-barred.
What the form must not claim
A malpractice intake should not estimate case value and should not indicate whether a claim has merit. Both are attorney determinations, and a preliminary figure produced from a few tap-to-select answers can set an expectation the firm cannot meet. The form should also state plainly that submitting an inquiry does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Related questions
Why can't a malpractice firm use the same intake form as personal injury?
Because the qualifying facts are different. A personal injury intake asks about police reports, fault, and the other party's insurance. None of those apply to a surgical error. Asking a malpractice claimant whether a police report was filed signals the form was not built for their matter, and it collects nothing the firm can act on.
Does a malpractice intake need medical records attached?
No. It needs to know whether records have been requested and whether the person already has them. Requiring document upload at the inquiry stage adds significant friction before the firm has decided the matter warrants review, and most people have not obtained their records when they first reach out.
Should the form ask whether a second opinion was obtained?
Yes, and it is one of the more useful questions on the form. A second opinion means another provider has already reviewed the care, which gives the firm something concrete to evaluate. Its absence does not mean the claim is weak — it means the matter is still unknown, which is a different and useful distinction.
What incident types should the form list?
Surgical error, misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis, birth injury, medication error, anesthesia error, and a catch-all for other matters. Listing them lets a person identify their situation without having to characterize it in legal terms they don't know.
Related reading
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