Last time, we talked about how courts were starting to view the findings of treating physicians less favorably due to independent medical evaluations conducted by insurers and “reviewing” physicians calling their opinions into question. This, however, isn’t the only reason why your doctor’s medical opinion may not be given as much weight as one from someone who has never seen you before: quite simply put, the job of a treating physician is a lot different from that of a forensic psychiatric expert, or FPE.
Treating Physician
Your doctor’s overarching goal – their mission – is always to alleviate your pain and suffering without doing you any harm. Because they are treating an individual and trying to make that individual feel better, they tend to rely on your subjective opinions about how you’re feeling rather than results they get from a test. The Hippocratic Oath even demands that they advocate for your best interests, so when courts accuse them of being advocates, they’re being quite literal. It’s part of the job.
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Forensic Psychiatric Expert
The mission of the forensic psychiatrist is to determine what is objectively true – not how you feel, but what can be proven. The way that they do this is to review all documentation related to your case and your condition and conduct psychological tests. This allows them to present opinions that are based on specific pieces of evidence.
In short, while your doctor’s job is basically to do whatever they can to make you feel better, forensic psychiatrists are only supposed to report what they find based on the evidence. But because it’s certainly possible that an independent medical examiner hired by your insurer may have some bias towards them, one possibly helpful tactic is to hire an FPE yourself to counteract any “objective” findings that might harm your case.
Learn more about what you might be able to do in your specific circumstances by contacting a knowledgeable long term disability attorney and checking out our free disability policy eBook
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