When an insurance company asks a claimant to attend an independent medical exam, that claimant has been asked to appear at a defense medical examination. Findings from that examination are supposed to help the defendant.
What sort of help does the defendant receive?
An insurance company schedules a defense medical examination with an eye towards obtaining information that can show that the plaintiff’s injuries are not as severe as he or she has claimed.
What restrictions does the legal system place on those that administer that scheduled exam?
The examining physician must focus only on those parts of the plaintiff’s body that relate to the issue in dispute. If the plaintiff seeks compensation for a broken arm, the doctor should not be tapping the plaintiff’s knee and testing his or her reflexes.
A generalized examination should not be given to the person that has claimed to have sustained injury to a specific body part. The examined plaintiff should not be expected to recall every detail that can be found in his or her complete medical history.
The rights of the person that gets examined in Alberta
The person that has been scheduled for an examination has the right to appear in the company of an injury lawyer in Sherwood Park. Moreover, the legal system gives that same attorney the right to record all of the conversation, as the attorney’s client gets examined.
When a lawyer is present at a defense medical examination, he or she has the right to object to a continuation of the observed exam, if the lawyer’s client has been asked to undergo unmentioned and unnecessary tests. That would include any test that normally gets included in a generalized physical.
The rights given by law to the defendant’s insurance company
The insurer has the right to schedule another defense examination, if the results from the first exam did not raise questions, regarding the severity of the plaintiff’s/claimant’s injuries. In other words, if an insurer is not happy with the finding from the first examination, that insurer can request a second similar examination.
The second exam normally takes place at a different facility. In addition, the plaintiff gets examined by a different doctor.
Rights denied the insurance company
The insurer does not have the right to expect a claimant to pay the full cost of travel from the claimant’s home to the site of the scheduled medical examination. Instead, the insurer must furnish the plaintiff with transportation to and from the site of the defense medical examination.
That makes life a bit easier for the person that has filed a complaint against the defendant’s insurance company. Still, it does not compensate for all of the time that is lost by the claimant.