I regularly advise my clients that they should be cooperative, yet guarded in their interactions with posted panel or employer provided independent medical examinations. 1 Often the physicians used by employers and their insurance companies get most or all of their business from insurance companies and they frequently minimize your symptoms, hold off on ordering tests, and are quick to return seriously injured claimants back to full duty work.
Most of us are brought up to think that a doctor is a doctor and that there must be some law or rule which says that your doctor’s first priority is your health and well being. In the reality of the workers’ compensation system, many of the doctors you will encounter assume that all injured claimants are most likely exaggerating or even faking their symptoms and will base their treatment decisions on this often false assumption.
I recently attended a continuing legal education seminar where one of the speakers related a story about an insurance company IME that illustrates what many claimants face. In this case, a long time employee of a company injured his right knee when he fell off a loading dock. The employer/insurer picked up the claim and paid benefits. Medically, however, his condition did not improve with rest, physical therapy or injections. [Read more…] about Independent Medical Examinations Ordered by Insurance Companies Rarely Unbiased
- Click here to read about one of my cases where the employer/insurer scheduled an “independent” medical exam for one of my clients with a doctor they chose who was located 150 miles from where my client lived. ↩