Subscribe via E-mail

Your email:

Follow Matheson!

Posts by category

Who Are We?

Latest Posts

Favorite Links & Blogs

Occ Rehab Photos

Functional Testing Equip.

Matheson Philosophy on Workplace Safety and Work Injury Evaluation

Current Articles | RSS Feed RSS Feed

Q & A: Referral Questions Establish Scope of Engagement of FCE

Posted on Mon, Mar 22, 2010 @ 01:54 PM
  
  
  
  
Add to delicious  delicious  
  

Question:

How do you balance between being objective with the clients and doing an extensive review of the case and medical file? I have had private investigation reports thrown in to files. Also do payers balk at paying for time spent in reviewing and preparing for FCE?


Answer:

My suggestion is one you have heard before: the referral questions and the purpose for referral establish the scope of the engagement. Are you being retained to administer a straight-forward FCE? Are you being retained as an expert witness for the purposes of file review?

Once scope is established, read the documents that are pertinent to your mission. In most cases sub rosa video tapes are not germane to your purposes.

The scope of your engagement should also set the parameters for the extent and cost of file review. File review and deposition/trial preparation generate a significant portion of a high level Thinking Evaluator's work.

Matheson Functional Capacity Evaluation

If anyone has any comments or suggestions about this topic, please feel free to add your input in the comments section!

Roy matheson, President

Stay in touch with us on:

Tags: , ,

Comments

With regard to being paid for what you do, I agree with Roy's advice, and would emphasize that it's incumbent on you to make it clear in your report how the information that you reviewed was useful or not. I generally use all of the information that comes from treating professionals. If there are other experts in the case, I carefully review their reports and describe their findings in the report, but will challenge any of their findings that do not comport with my findings. The surveillance videos are always an important issue because they require so much time to review properly thus violating Practicality, our 4th criterion in the Hierarchy. The private investigators really need to get their act together if the videos are ever going have utility for us. If you get a video, have the referrer specify which section you are to review and how much time they believe it’s worth. If they believe it’s crucial, review it carefully. Unless the video shows egregious variations from your findings, it’s only worth a screening-level review.
Posted @ Wednesday, March 24, 2010 6:50 AM by Len Matheson
Post Comment
Name
 *
Email
 *
Website (optional)
Comment
 *

Allowed tags: <a> link, <b> bold, <i> italics