One of the many changes to the new Michigan No-Fault Act, signed into law by Gov. Whitmer yesterday concerns the qualifications of doctors who can perform a medical examination ,an IME, on behalf of an insurance company. The new law provides that during the year before an IME, the IME doctor must have devoted a majority of professional time to clinical practice of medicine/specialty or teaching in an accredited medical school.
Historically, there have been doctors who did IMEs full time, and didn't maintain any sort of clinical practice. I have specific memories of 2 such doctors from the days of my plaintiff PI practice.
In the mid-1990s, my firm filed a slip and fall case on behalf of a client who fell exiting his CPA's office in the Flint area. It so happened that the defendant was the father of a lawyer who was a former co-worker and friend of mine. We shared a secretary in fact.
In the course of the case, my client moved from Flint to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The defendants sent me a notice that the plaintiff was to submit to an IME by Dr. Glafkos Theodulou, who had not actually treated a patient since 1979. The IME was set for Flint, though the doctor also did IMEs in the Detroit area. I objected to my client coming back to Flint for this exam and suggested that the defendant pick an examining doctor in the Cedar Rapids area. The defendant would not agree and filed a motion to compel the exam.
At the motion hearing, the defendant said that the exam by Dr. Theodulou should go forward in Flint as he had already reviewed a lot of my client's medical records. And of course, defendant did not know any Cedar Rapids doctor in whose opinion he could have confidence.
Even after my eloquent arguments, the judge seemed inclined to make my client come back, so with apparently little to lose, I told the judge that I was familiar with Dr. Theodulou's reports. I suggested that we could save all parties a lot of time and expense, if we just took one of Dr. Theodulou's old reports, whited out the examinee's name and typed in my client's name. The judge was not amused, and he ordered that the IME take place in Flint. My client attended, as ordered.
When Dr. Theodulou's trial deposition was taken, I asked the doctor if he had reviewed any of the plaintiff's medical records before his exam. Of course he answered "No".
Dr. S.A. Colah never had a clinical practice, as far as I could remember. He was the "go to" IME doctor of many defense attorneys. I never saw a pro-plaintiff exam report from Dr. Colah. However, Dr. Colah had for many years suffered from a rather advanced case of rheumatoid arthritis. The joints of his fingers, on both hands, were severely swollen and misshapened. In fact, on more than one occasion, I asked him if he felt that condition impeded his ability to palpate the afflicted body parts of his examiniees. Oh, no, he said.
In later years, plaintiff lawyers, including me, developed a strategy for neutralizing Dr. Colah. Defendants never took his trial depositions by videotape. Plaintiffs eventually realized that Dr. Colah refused to testify on video, presumably because of his apparent RA issues. So, when the trial deposition notice came in from the defendant, the plaintiff would send a counter deposition notice, setting the deposition as video. The Colah dep was then cancelled.
After many years of seeing Dr. Colah's reports, I began telling lawyers that I had changed my will to provide that Dr. Colah perform my post mortem exam. I was convinced that whatever the cause of my demise, Dr. Colah would have me cleared to return to work without restrictions, immediately.
"The Beard Grows, But The Head Does Not Grow Wiser."
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