In the case of bodily injury, medical expertise is necessary for the evaluation of the victim’s compensation.
What is a medical expertise? How is this expertise important? How to defend yourself during an expertise? What recourse against a medical expertise?
What is a medical expertise?
The main objective of medical expertise is to assess all the bodily injuries suffered by a victim.
It belongs to medical graduates of personal injury compensation whose mission is to pronounce on the causes of damage attributable to the initial damage. You can also choose personal injury lawyer but he must be expert such as Paul Napoli.
This examination is necessary to qualify and quantify the injuries suffered by the injured person since his accident.
In other cases, an expert doctor will be used.
It can be mandated by an insurance company or a court.
He conducts a clinical examination of the victim, reads the medical documents given to him and hears the verbal and / or written grievances of the victim.
The expert then makes his medical conclusions and sends a complete report to the addressees (insurance, victim, or lawyer in the context of legal proceedings).
Only in the context of a traffic accident caused by a third party is the medical expert legally obliged to send a copy of his report to the victim.
In other cases, it is up to the victim to apply to the insurance.
How is this expertise important?
To render his report, the medical expert must reply to the heads of mission addressed to him by the insurance or the Tribunal.
Among the heads of mission, we find the famous positions of personal injury, from the nomenclature DINTLIHAC that the doctor must remember or reject and evaluate or describe.
It is therefore only on the basis of the answers to the heads of mission and evaluations of this expert physician that the victim will then be able to assess the financial reparation to be solicited by the insurance department, the court, etc.
It is in this sense that the medical expertise is the key to a good compensation because without this expertise, neither the insurance, nor the lawyer or lawyer, nor the magistrate is able to know if this or that prejudice is well evaluated or is related to the initial damage (accident, aggression, medical accident, etc.)
In many situations, this very important prejudice is often not retained by the medical expert even if it were complaints made by the victim during the expert’s report.
In the same register, the assistance of a third person (human help), professional or family, the day after the accident to help the victim to perform a number of tasks such as dressing, toilet, household chores , shopping, traveling, etc. is often dismissed or undervalued during the discussion with the expert physician.
Again, the period of work stoppage attributable to the accident can be reduced by the expert who will consider that your state of health allowed you to return to work sooner …
Loss of income beyond the period of sick leave chosen by the medical expert may therefore not be compensated!
Poor expertise cannot result in good compensation…
How to defend yourself during an expertise?
First of all, it is essential to bring your entire medical file during this examination to avoid any discussion with the expert.
Then, it is important to think to synthetically write a letter of grievances that will take up your entire journey since the event causing the damage (accident, aggression, medical error), the consequences on your personal life (human assistance needed, pain, psychological, sexual impact, impossible activities of approval, etc.) and professional.
Finally, the main asset will be to be accompanied by a medical expert who will defend your medical file against the expert appointed by the insurance or the Judge.
Note that in the context of a judicial expertise, the insurance or the adverse party will send his medical expert to represent his interests.
By going alone, you take the risk that the expert takes into account only the words of the expert representing the opposite party!
This expert doctor of recourse or victim will ensure that your rights are respected and that all the positions of damages defined in the nomenclature DINTILHAC are kept in their high range.
In order to defend you at best, a prior appointment with this doctor of appeal must be scheduled at the earliest so that he can soak up your medical file and your complaints that he will put forward during the expertise. .
The better is the expertise, the better the compensation for your personal and financial injury.
What recourse against a medical expertise?
It is possible to dispute medical findings that would not be appropriate for the victim, whether the physician has undervalued the harm or failed to comment on another.
This challenge can be made either in an amicable framework or in a judicial framework.
In an amicable setting, it is possible to conduct a so-called contradictory medical examination if the victim was alone during the first expert examination.
Arbitration expertise can also be a good compromise since the expertise is entrusted to a medical arbitrator, deemed neutral, to settle the “dispute”.
Attention, in this case, it must be ensured that the referee expert is not part of the insurance network in question.
In a contentious setting, a medical examination may be requested from a Judge before a Tribunal.
In this case, it is up to the lawyer to make the request.
In any case, the assistance of a medical expert is essential because it will be one of the guardians of your rights.