Disability claimants are often not so fortunate as to have only one condition. The nature and severity of a condition and its impact on someone’s function is an evaluation that combines precise history taking with data yielded on physical examination and laboratory testing, along with input on physical functioning from objective, detached sources.
Disability is not so simple as merely the inability to work. For insurance policies written to account for inability to work only in one’s current profession, the assessment of physical injury and disease needs to be that much more woven into a deep understanding of the examinee’s activities in a given profession. Can a surgeon practice high risk obstetrics after a wrist injury? Or is his career now consigned to office-based practice?
The Forensic Panel’s range of medical specialists is well suited to evaluate disability claimants and to offer direction on the expected course of a condition and how to impact its prognosis (if that is possible). When disability is not so visible, but otherwise undeniable, expert physicians of The Forensic Panel possess the sensitivity to yield understanding about the impact of a condition and to educate decision-makers about what they must understand.
Likewise, disability cases also require the savvy to identify those exaggerating their limitations. In this vein, the oversight of peer-review equips The Forensic Panel’s assessments with additional attentiveness to detail, accountability for bias, and the right balance of compassion with common sense. Assessments of prognosis are all the more grounded in the state of the art for medical treatment because of the input of sage peer-reviewers with pertinent expertise. The resulting forensic assessment brings medical certainty to the courts that welcome the instructive and impartial role of the expert physician.