IME Provider Relations

Introduction

In our recent blog post series, I have leveraged my experience of nearly five years in the IME business to provide you, the legal professional, with best practices and tips on how to prepare for an IME, how to manage the post-IME period, and how to assess the quality of a new expert.

My final post in this series will be about something we touched on in all three articles — your relationship with your IME provider. Establishing a relationship with good business development professionals or account managers at multiple IME referral clinics will lead to more access to hard-to-book experts, more flexibility on cancellation deadlines, faster responses to urgent requests, more first-right-of-refusal options, and a far greater likelihood that your contact makes an effort to convince a popular expert to fit your last minute emergency IME into their full schedule. They may even commandeer your client's car in traffic to ensure they do not miss their critical IME (see the end of Four Post-IME Tips).

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How to Identify a Good Representative

Before you invest your time developing a business relationship with a BD representative at an IME clinic, you should first identify whether this person is worth your time. You should determine the following:

• Do they know your industry?
  They should be able to speak competently with you about your area of law, and understand your jurisdiction's civil code. You are not looking for your equal in legal knowledge, only that they understand the conditions and issues you are dealing with when selecting an expert. Don't be afraid to ask some difficult, probing questions. For example, in British Columbia, they should be able to explain what a list of factual assumptions is, and why it is important that their assessors include it in their reports. Be wary of an IME clinic with out-of-province experts that does not demonstrate a clear understanding of the requirements of your jurisdiction's civil code.
• Are they clear about their sales objectives?
  Of course, all individuals tasked with driving sales are interested in increasing their company's revenue. But, there are multiple ways to go about this, and some of them are indicative of a person who will not provide you with quality service. A red flag would be someone who is not willing to discuss their sales approach with you, or dodges the question. You are probably talking to someone whose primary goal is to get you to book an IME, any IME, with any provider. What you are looking for is someone who explains that their approach is not to get you to book one IME, but to cause you to book the next ten. This is someone who will steer you away from options that aren't great for your current needs, even if it means possibly not securing a booking initially. Because they understand that the development of trust over time is far more valuable than one sale in the medium to long term. That's the person you want to be working with. This person will only encourage you to book with an expert if they truly believe you will continue to book with that expert after the first report.
• Do they know their assessors?
  A good business development professional should be able to speak at length about the doctors on their roster, their experience, and their reporting style.

Once you are reasonably confident that you are connected with someone who is interested in the long-term success of your IME experience, spend some time getting to know them. One clear good sign is a representative who is genuinely interested in getting to know you and your needs. If appropriate, take them up on a lunch offer, and come with questions. Establishing a good rapport with an IME business development professional will allow you to leverage that relationship to access the good relationship this person has with all the experts on their roster.

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