As a new legal nurse consultant, you may be asked to Bates stamp medical records and other legal documents. What is Bates stamping? It's a way to apply a unique number to each page of each case document so that specific pages can be quickly reviewed and retrieved. Bates stamping can be very helpful when experts and the legal team discuss the case. Instead of shuffling through a chart in an attempt to locate a certain notation, the team can go to a unique page number. Bates stamping is also helpful in locating specific document pages during trials.

There are two ways to add Bates stamps - mechanically and electronically.