The Medical Index feature in MerusCase allows you to combine PDF documents from your case files into a medical index or other type of index file. This feature is already enabled and no additional setup is required to use it with the default settings. However, if your firm is already using a specific activity tag to track documents for medical indexes, the firm preferences for the Medical Index feature can be adjusted to retroactively make documents ready to be included in a medical index. This article will outline the steps to make this adjustment; see our instructional article for more information on using the feature to create indexes.
Firm Setup
NOTE: Firm settings are only accessible to firm administrators. Your personal MerusCase account may not have sufficient privileges to edit them.
In order to include documents in a medical index within MerusCase, they will need to be tagged with a specific activity tag. The default tag provided for this purpose is “Indexable”. In order to change this preference, navigate to Tools & Settings > Firm Display Options > Document Index Settings.
NOTE: We recommend that you designate a tag before the users in your firm start creating index files. By preemptively setting the medical index tag, users will have a more consistent experience when using the Medical Index feature inside of case files.
To change the medical index tag for your firm, select the Activity Tag dropdown on the settings page and select your preferred activity tag instead of the default “Indexable” tag. You will be asked to type the activity tag to confirm the change.
This settings page also displays changes made to the activity tag preference for audit purposes.
Documents Available for Indexing
All documents using the medical index tag, defined for your firm, will be available for indexing. Documents can also be made available for the Medical Index feature from the Activities tab in a case file.
Select one or more documents from the Activities table and click the “Document Index” button. This action will apply the medical index tag to the selected activities. All documents using the medical index tag will be available for indexing.
NOTE: Only PDF documents are able to be included in medical indexes. Word documents that have been converted to PDF format by MerusCase can also be included. Other types of activities will not be included in the Medical Index feature, even if they have been tagged with your firm's medical index tag.
As part of this feature, some additional data fields have been added to document activities. When editing a document activity, the following fields are editable and can be used to include additional reference information that will be displayed in a Medical Index:
- Date of Document
- Date Received
- Date of Service (new)
- Document Author (new)
These data points can also be included in the cover sheet that is generated for your medical indexes.
See our Frequently Asked Questions article for more information.