Medical indemnity claim—medical indemnity claim commencement date, DDMMYYYY
Identifying and definitional attributes
Metadata item type:
Data Element
Short name:
Medical indemnity claim commencement date
METeOR identifier:
329623
Registration status:
Health, Standard 07/12/2011
Definition:
The date on which a medical indemnity claim commenced, as signalled by a trigger such as the issue of a letter of demand, issue of writ, or an offer made by the defendant to the claimant, expressed as DDMMYYYY.
The date recorded should be the date of the first trigger. For example, if a letter of demand is received and subsequently a writ is issued, the date recorded for this metadata item should be the date of the letter of demand.
The date the medical indemnity claim commenced must be a date that is the same as or after the date the health-care incident occurred. It may be a date before or after the date the reserve was placed.
A trigger for the commencement of a medical indemnity claim is any event that distinguishes the claim from potential claims, which have had a reserve set but may be based on no more information than a health-care incident report. Common triggers are allegations of harm or other loss from the patient or another party related to the patient, and offers of compensation by the defendant before an allegation of harm or other loss has been received.
This data element should be used in conjunction with the data element: Date—accuracy indicator, code AAA to flag whether each component in the claim commencement date is accurate, estimated or unknown.
Comments:
Date information will assist in the analysis of temporal patterns in the Medical Indemnity National Collection.
A claim commencement trigger is not sufficient for a medical indemnity claim to be recognised. The critical event is the setting of a reserve which marks the health authority's recognition of the likelihood that costs will be incurred in finalising the claim. However, if a claim commencement trigger precedes when the reserve is set, than the claim will come into existence as a commenced, not a potential claim.
See also Date—accuracy indicator, code AAA Community Services, Standard 30/09/2005, Housing assistance, Standard 23/08/2010, Health, Standard 04/05/2005, Early Childhood, Standard 21/05/2010, Homelessness, Standard 23/08/2010
