After a complication, it’s common to hear vague explanations like “the system generated that,” “the report was automated,” or “the notes came from transcription software.” Those phrases can be alarming—because they often raise a practical question: Was the AI output reviewed and used responsibly?
In Severance cases, we typically see families dealing with a few repeating patterns:
- Discharge instructions or follow-up notes that don’t match what you were told in person
- Imaging summaries that appear inconsistent with the timeline of symptoms
- Operative or perioperative documentation that seems incomplete, overwritten, or unusually formatted
- Decision-support references that suggest a tool influenced risk assessment or next-step recommendations
Your next steps should be about building clarity quickly:
- Request your complete medical file (not just the summary—ask for operative reports, anesthesia documentation, nursing notes, imaging reports, and any addenda)
- Write a tight timeline of symptoms, appointments, and what changed after surgery
- Save every document you received electronically (portal messages, discharge PDFs, after-visit summaries)
- Tell counsel where you saw AI references (for example, specific terms in the chart or a phrase your provider used)


