For workers’ compensation, automobile casualty, and personal injury cases, it is critically important to determine if problems are causally related to an injury. We accurately assess causation and apportionment by applying science and current medical knowledge.
Often, assessments appeared to be based on post hoc ergo propter hoc (i.e., “after this, therefore because of this”). That logical fallacy is based on the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. This is particularly problematic when self-reports are not reliable.
The process of assessing causation was presented in the May – June 2012 issue of the Guides Newsletter.1 These approaches are defined in the AMA text Guides to the Evaluation of Disease and Injury Causation.
…we assess the severity of any related non-occupational (non-injury) and occupational (injury) factors in the context of current science to provide you with an accurate, supportable assessment…”
The established protocol we follow includes:
- Definitively establish a diagnosis.
- Apply relevant findings from epidemiologic science to the individual case.
- Obtain and assess the evidence of exposure.
- Consider other relevant factors.
- Scrutinize the validity of the evidence.
- Evaluate the results from the above steps and generalize conclusions.
In reviewing a case, we assess the severity of any related non-occupational (non-injury) and occupational (injury) factors in the context of current science to provide you with an accurate, supportable assessment of causation and apportionment.
1. Barth RJ. “Determining Injury-Relatedness, Work-Relatedness, and Claim-Relatedness.” Guides Newsletter. May/June 2012.
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