What Happens At A Medico-Legal Examination

If you are pursuing a personal injury claim and either the defendant has admitted liability or your solicitor is confident that your claim will succeed, then it is likely that you could be asked by your solicitor to go be examined.

The medical examination seeks to support your claim and offer impartial proof to the defendant’s legal team as to the confirmation of your symptoms and impact on life. Using the review of the medical examination, your solicitor is then in a strong position to begin negotiating a settlement figure on your behalf.

Your medical examination is paid for by your solicitor, with the costs recovered from the defendant at the end of the claims process.

What happens before the medical examination?

To give you some understanding into what to expect at a personal injury medical appointment, we should also look at what happens before your appointment.

When you begin your claim, you may be asked for permission to access your medical records. This is to see if you have pre-existing injuries or illnesses.

The expert would usually ask for your medical records to be released to them to look at before seeing you. This way, they can get an idea of what they would like to ask you and what examinations may be necessary.

Before your personal injury medical assessment, you may be asked to complete a questionnaire. This may contain questions about the accident, your injuries and the impact they’ve had on you.

What happens at the medical examination?

The assessment will typically take around 30 minutes depending on the extent of your injuries. The independent medical expert will ask a series of questions about the accident you were involved in. This will include questions about your symptoms, the effect of your injuries/ illness on your day-to-day life and any subsequent treatment.

It is also likely that the expert will carry out a physical examination. This is dependent on the extent of your injuries however and how well you have recovered since the accident.

The main purpose of the medical examination is to determine how long it will take you to recover from your injuries, if you will have any long lasting or permanent damage and if you need to have any form of rehabilitation to aid your recovery.

What happens after the medical examination?

When your personal injury medical appointment has been completed, a medical report is normally produced by the medical expert who examined you. If you have chosen to instruct a solicitor to deal with your claim, this report is usually sent to them.

The report will typically address the following matters:

• a diagnosis of the injury.
• discussion of any previous injuries or illnesses that may be impacting the subject injury or illness and apportioning between those various injuries and illnesses.
• discussion of the impact that the injury has had on the injured person’s ability to work; and
• discussion of the impact that the injury has had on the injured person’s ability to undertake their usual activities of daily life.

Once you have read the medical report and verified you are happy the contents are accurate, it will then be forwarded to the defendant’s solicitor for them to assess and make their offer of compensation.

If your injuries were particularly complex or severe, a medical report could help your solicitor secure an interim compensation payment. This can help you to access private specialist medical care to assist in a faster recovery. It will also help cover the costs of day-to-day living while you are unable to work.

If you have any more questions about what happens in a personal injury claim, or you want to understand more about the process, contact the Personal Injury team on 0330 822 3451 or request a callback.