Medical expertise who can attend the clinical examination?
Cornerstone of the compensation of victims, medical expertise arouses many controversies.
The clinical examination, necessary to establish the after-effects of the victim, is an essential prerequisite to the determination of his damages.
This is a major issue for the victim who will have to have all of his after-effects recognized and the insurance company which will do its best to minimize these same after-effects in order to reduce compensation, to the detriment of the real needs of the victim.
Despite the stakes, the conditions of its unfolding, in the presence of the lawyer chosen by the victim to assist him and thus provided with an ad litem mandate, are at the heart of a constant controversy.
On the one hand the doctors, who, from the point of view of medical secrecy, the violation of which is criminally sanctioned, recall that the clinical examination is a medical examination which must be carried out with strict respect for the human person who is a victim brought to reveal the intimacy of her body.
On the other hand, the lawyers, who recall the legal, if not judicial, purpose of the expertise and, therefore, the particular nature of the framework of the clinical examination, submitted, like all the stages of a procedure, respecting the essential principle of adversarial proceedings.
In its report, adopted during the session of October 21, 2011, the National Council of the Order of Physicians first recalled that medical secrecy was not enforceable by the doctor against the victim: medical secrecy belongs to the victim alone, who can also relieve his doctor.
The National Council of the Order of Physicians ruled, specifying that:
“Respecting the contradictory is also fundamental in the field of the assessment of bodily injury. Whether in the judicial medical expertise or in the amicable expertise, it is binding on the doctor commissioned for all that concerns his mission of expertise The medical examination is usually done in the presence of the doctors only, with the agreement of the injured. The victim can request that only the expert be present, or on the contrary impose the presence of the person of his choice. »
In other words, the refusal of an expert or amicable doctor to accept the presence of a lawyer or of the person chosen by the victim, during the clinical examination, is likely to found a disciplinary procedure against him.
It is therefore in perfect agreement with this ethical analysis of the National Council of the Order of Physicians that a Guide to good practice for medical advisers has been jointly established between the French Federation of Insurance Companies (FFSA), the Groupement insurance mutuals (GEMA) and several victims' associations.
This guide, available to all medical advisors, specifies without any ambiguity:
"It is customary for non-physicians not to attend the clinical examination, but it may happen that the victim expressly wishes that one of his relatives, or his lawyer, be present, in which case the expert cannot oppose it”.
Pour notre part, Mattheva dispose d’un réseau de médecins de recours qui accompagnent les victimes lors de l’expertise médicale. En effet il nous semble plus pertinent de confier cette tâche à un médecin conseil diplômé en réparation juridique du dommage corporel qui pourra vérifier si l’examen clinique se déroule selon les règles de l’art. Et confier à notre avocat la rédaction des éventuels dires en collaboration avec le médecin conseil Mattheva, afin d’anticiper le chiffrage des préjudices. C’est cette organisation en interne qui nous permet de faire reconnaitre l’ensemble des préjudices de la victime.
La présence d’un avocat lors de l’examen clinique peut être une solution de substitution si la victime ne bénéficie pas de l’accompagnement d’un médecin conseil. Mais en aucun cas l’avocat sera légitime pour porter la contradiction au médecin en charge de l’expertise. Par conséquent il aura juste pour rôle de rassurer la victime.
Mattheva bénéficie d’un réseau d’avocats et de médecins conseils qui selon les besoins peuvent être tous les deux présents lors de l’expertise médicale.
