Medical records
Independent medical examination (IME)
An independent medical examination is a physical or mental examination of a claimant by a doctor selected — and paid — by the opposing party or insurer, typically to test the claimed injuries, causation, and need for treatment.
“Independent” is the contested word — plaintiff lawyers pointedly call it a defense medical examination. Authority comes from rules like Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 35 (examination on motion and good cause) or, in workers’ compensation, from statute; the report that results is often the defense’s central damages evidence.
Why it matters in practice
The IME report’s power comes from comparison, so preparation is records work on both sides. The examiner will have read the chart; a claimant who describes symptoms inconsistently with their own treatment history hands the defense an impeachment exhibit. Plaintiff-side preparation means knowing what the records say — complaints, prior injuries, gaps — before the exam does.
Cross-examining the examiner is likewise a documents exercise: how many exams for this insurer, what portion of income from defense work, and — most productively — where the report’s recitation of the records is wrong. IME reports summarize hundreds of pages quickly; a misquoted chart entry or an omitted positive finding, confronted with the source page, can undo the report’s authority in minutes.
In the fact record
Checking an IME report against the underlying chart is exactly the comparison a verified fact record automates: every asserted “the records show” claim, tested against records that are already extracted, dated, and cited.