Independent medical examination
An independent medical examination is an evaluation of an injured plaintiff by a physician selected and paid by the defense or the insurer, used to challenge the extent, cause or permanence of the claimed injury.
The name is a term of art. The examining physician is chosen and paid by the other side, and plaintiff lawyers generally consider “independent” to be doing a lot of work in that phrase.
What the examiner is looking for
Largely the same things a good chronology surfaces: gaps in treatment, prior injuries to the same body part, inconsistencies between what the plaintiff reported to different providers, and treatment that continued after the record suggests recovery.
Why preparation is a records problem
You cannot prepare a client for questions about their own record if nobody has read all of it. A firm that knows its own file — every date, every provider, every gap and its explanation — walks into an IME knowing what is coming. A firm that does not, finds out afterward.
Not ready to book a call
Send us five pages of a record set. We will send back what we found in it.
Five pages is enough, redacted however you like. You get a short video back within two business days showing what a chronology would surface from it: the dates, the gaps, the things worth knowing before the other side finds them.
- Send five pages of a real file. Redact whatever you like first.
- We run them and record what comes out, including what it misses.
- You get the video within two business days. If there is nothing worth showing, we say so.