Comparative analysis of the independent medical examination reports and legal decisions in pain medicine.
BACKGROUND
An independent medical examination (IME) is a critical process for awarding reparation for injury. However, conducting an IME in pain medicine is very difficult, not only because pain is a subjective symptom, but also because there are no proper objective methods to demonstrate it. This study was conducted to compare IME reports and the court decisions on the disability status of the patients.


METHODS
We analyzed 79 IME reports and 25 corresponding court decisions on the disability status of patients. The diagnoses, causal relationships between the patients' status and the trauma, McBride's degree of disability, the American Medical Association's impairment ratings, the estimated annual cost for future treatment, and the necessity of care-giving were compared and analyzed.


RESULTS
The diagnoses in the 79 cases were complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) type I (58 cases), CRPS type II (7 cases), peripheral neuropathy (5 cases), myofascial pain syndrome (4 cases), herniated intervertebral disc (2 cases), and fibromyalgia (1 case). The types of accidents were road traffic accidents (50 cases), military injuries (14 cases), industrial accidents (11 cases), and others (4 cases). The IME reports and the court decisions stated considerably different McBride's degrees of disability (P = 0.014). However, there was no significant difference in the estimated cost for future treatment between the IME reports and the court decisions (P = 0.912).


CONCLUSIONS
IME reports should be accurate, fair, and based on objective findings. Feedback on IMEs from the court decisions is helpful for reference use.
Nahm
Francis Sahngun
FS
Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea.
Lee
Pyung Bok
PB
Kim
Tae Hun
TH
Kim
Yong Chul
YC
Lee
Chul Joong
CJ