In this video Marc Whitehead, Board Certified Disability Attorney, explains how Long Term Disability Insurance companies will use independent medical exams against you in your claim.
When you make a disability claim with your insurance company there is a good chance that you will be doing this with a statement from your doctor describing the issues that you have. This is your proof/ evidence that you are, in fact, suffering from a disability. Most claimants don’t even think past that, they figure that if a medical doctor has signed off stating that you are disabled that the end of the story. But any disability attorney will tell you that insurance companies aren’t just going to pay based on the word of your doctor.
Chances are that they will want to schedule more appointments with their disability insurance doctors, called independent medical exams. But how independent are these medical exams? This is a big question about these medical exams, exactly what is independent about them? Theoretically they are supposed to be conducted by doctors that have to stake in the outcome. Insurance companies would argue that your doctor is more likely to side with you because they know you and have a relationship with you. So they want some one with fresh eyes to look at the situation.
While this sounds fair, it isn’t. These so-called independent disability doctors are not only in the network of your insurance company but, many of them actually advertise to the insurers that they can help keep their cost down by disputing claims. This is good for the doctors because they receive money from the insurers for seeing you and good for the insurers because they are getting a medical opinion to use against your claim. The claimant is the only person that this isn’t good for.
A good disability attorney is aware of this going on and knows how to argue against the findings of these so-called independent examiners. So it is wise to get an expert on your side if the insurance company attempts to block your claim.
