can ICBC force you to see a doctor?

When you are involved in a lawsuit with ICBC, you may be required to attend one or more medical appointments with a doctor chosen by ICBC. This is commonly referred to as a “Defence Medical Examinations” (DME).


Downtown Vancouver ICBC Pain & Suffering Claims (lawyers for ICBC injury claims)
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chris bungay vancouver personal injury lawyer

Why are you required to attend to see a doctor by ICBC? The Rules of Court allow for this. These rules set out the structure for anyone who is suing/getting sued in BC. As part of that structure, the Rules try to allow fairness on both sides. If you sue ICBC for your injuries, the Rules try and be fair, and allow ICBC to find out medically what is wrong with you. If you refuse to attend the appointment, ICBC can apply to the Court for an order that you are breaking the Rules of Court by not attending. If that happens, the judge can order you to attend to see the ICBC doctor.

At the ICBC medical appointment, the doctor will do a full medical examination and write a report to ICBC about your injuries. In our opinion, and based on our experience, many of the doctors ICBC choose for these appointments give very conservative opinions. More often than not, the reports written by many of these doctors often do not help your case.

How do we deal with this problem? As your lawyers, we have a library of cases where judges have dealt with the opinions of these doctors. In many cases, judges have found some of these doctors have not given credible opinions.   Some judges have even found that some ICBC doctors have acted as “advocates”, meaning they were not fair in their opinion and were deemed to be acting in ICBC’s best interests, instead of being objective. When ICBC sends you to see a doctor, we look up cases to examine how judges have treated the opinions of the physician. If the doctor was not believed by a judge, we can (and do) show that case to ICBC. In doing so, we show them that we are on to their ‘tricks’, and we will not accept a lower value for your claim just because you saw a doctor.a doctor ICBC specifically picked for you, who was not believed in a past case similar to yours.

If you do have a car accident claim, and ICBC requires you to see one of their doctors, please keep in mind that they often carry out surveillance on you the day of your appointment. This means that ICBC often hires a private investigator to follow you from your home to the doctor’s office and then again after the appointment. With that in mind, if you are traveling to such an appointment, you should be very cautious about what you are doing in public. For example, if you are injured and are not sure you can mow the lawn, the day you try mowing the lawn should not be the same day you see the ICBC doctor.

Downtown Vancouver ICBC Pain & Suffering Claims (lawyers for ICBC injury claims)
Call us today for a free consultation 604-684-4300

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