The question of whether you sign medical release forms is pretty general because we often can’t get medical care until we sign all sorts of forms that we don’t even know we’re signing, like privacy acknowledgments, they’re giving the provider authority to share the medical records with other treaters, et cetera, et cetera. Generally, the stuff that we’re presented with at the beginning of our medical treatment, we sign. We sign.

Signing a form that you acknowledge that there’s risks to the procedure, which is another kind of form other than privacy acknowledgement or whatever, a lotta people think, “Well, if I signed that, then I’ve signed all my rights away,” and you really haven’t. A medical provider cannot – nor can a driver – get you to sign a form that absolves them of their negligent behavior. If you signed a release acknowledging that, for example, infection is a risk of the procedure and you later get an infection, the fact that you signed the form doesn’t end the inquiry. If you got the infection just because you had the – whatever in your skin, nobody did anything wrong, then the release means something. If you got the infection because someone treated you negligently, then the form doesn’t prevent you from making a claim.