How To Make An Independent Medical Examination (IME) Work On Your Favor After A Car Accident

In any car accident case, the insurance adjuster may request to have more evidence on the claims of your injuries caused by their insured. As such, you may be requested to undergo an independent medical examination. If the insurance adjuster is asking for such information, this means that they need to find more about your current medical condition and whether there could be pre-existing injuries to deny or minimize the compensation for your claim. If you were involved in an accident and believe in having suffered from injuries, an independent medical examination is not something to make you panic. It will just be a way to confirm that indeed you suffered from the said injuries. But it would help if you were careful since some of these independent doctors are known to work with the insurance adjusters to tone down your injuries.

What To Do In An Independent Medical Examination

An independent medical examination is conducted by a doctor or any other health care professional to provide answers to specific situations such as personal injury cases, disability claims, among others. This examination is unbiased in nature. Though these medical examinations are said to be independent, this can be misleading. Therefore to ensure this examination is not used against you, you can consult car accident personal injury lawyer to discuss the issue and how it can affect your claim. An experienced lawyer can challenge the doctor’s report if there is any disparity. In most cases, the insurance adjuster may request for an independent examination if:

• He/she disagrees with the course of medical treatment offered by your treating doctor
• The amount of medical expenses seems to be exaggerated concerning the injuries suffered
• The treating doctor claims there is the probability or permanent disability and the degree of disability is high
• Disparity to your ability to work in future

When such an examination is being conducted, you need to know how you can protect yourself against poor evaluation. There is always a valid reason to question the objectivity of the doctor who has been selected by the insurance company to conduct the investigation. With this, you may opt to have an experienced personal injury lawyer  to argue that the IME is not necessary in your case: But for such a case, you need to be careful since the insurance company may claim that you refused to cooperate to allow an IME to be conducted on you. They may state that your injuries are exaggerated. Since the rules related to IMEs vary from state to state, your lawyer can positionally place you to winning when your case is being evaluated.

What You Need To Do During Your IME

If the insurance adjuster has requested for an IME, the best thing you can do is to have some advice from your lawyer.  You can consider the below:

If you’re to attend the IME have someone go along with you: It may greatly help if you have a friend or a family member who is a medical professional. They can help if a dispute arises.

 Remain cooperative: The IME doctor should conduct his/her investigations without interruptions. You should also ensure not to say anything that may lender the IME doctor to have questions about your injuries.

Don’t exaggerate your car accident injuries: This may automatically lend your treating doctor’s report invalid. The consequences for such may not be favorable. The IME doctor may testify in court that your injuries are not as bad as you claim.

After the examination, ensure to have your copy of the document, this will significantly help you to know whether there is any disparity between what your treating doctor indicated on your report and what the IME investigation revealed. Most of the IME is entirely negative. Worse enough could be when the insurance adjuster may realize you don’t have a legal representative.

 How To Win over On The Outcome Of Your IME

If you’re a car accident victim and the insurance adjuster has requested for an IME, make sure to have techniques to protect your rights. Many issues may crop up during your investigations; as such, you need to protect your right by having the right information from an experienced lawyer. Since these examinations are conducted by doctors hired by the insurance company, at no point will they work towards your best interest. You can be assured they will fight for every inch to have your car accident injuries minimized to the extent of receiving a lower settlement. Thus, you need to be fully equipped to counter the wrong report. You can even go to the extent of requesting to have the information about the relationship the IME doctor has with the insurance company. This may be the hardest thing the insurance adjuster can do. With this, you may have a better chance to push the adjuster to negotiate a more favorable settlement.