6.2.4.4 Provide information to IIA
The Agent must provide certain information to the IIA Independent impairment assessment.
Standard letters of referral to IIA
A series of AMA4-module specific standard letters are available to use when referring workers to the IIA. All information required for the independent impairment assessment is included in the standard letters.
Information to be provided
The Agent must provide the medical practitioner, whether IIA, IME Independent Medical Examiner / Independent Medical Examination or dual purpose examiner, with relevant information and detailed instructions. This could include:
- treating doctor reports
- hospital reports
- x-rays and reports
- test results
- claim form and injury circumstance reports.
An itemised list of material provided must be included in the correspondence to the IIA.
Information to be requested from IIA
The Agent must provide the IIA specific case instructions including:
- a request to examine only accepted injuries
- identify rejected injuries
- instructions to consider aggravation, apportionment and unrelated condition/s to the impairment claim (where relevant) including medical information describing this unrelated impairment brought about by separate incidents
- a synopsis of issues to consider
- a request for the following information to be addressed in the impairment assessment report:
- a whole person impairment for each accepted injury (for all relevant chapters of the AMA4 guides)
- if applicable for injuries which occurred on or after 3/12/03, a separate whole person impairment for any accepted injuries assessable under Chapter 3 of the AMA4 Guides
- details of any accepted injury that results in a total loss injury set out in the no disadvantage compensation table
- details of any injury arising out of the accepted incident/cause for which compensation has not been claimed
- advice if a further specialist opinion is needed about the injuries
- where necessary, an apportionment of impairments brought about by separate incidents (whether work-related An injury/disease is work related if it arose out of or in the course of employment and the scope of employment. or unrelated to the claim)
- confirmation that the accepted injury/injuries are stable.
Information to be requested from dual purpose examiners
WorkSafe suggests that in some circumstances it is appropriate to identify to the IIA:
- identification of accepted injuries, rejected injuries and those injuries where liability is undetermined
- a request to provide an impairment assessment of the accepted injuries
- a request for the ‘dual purpose’ examiners medical opinion in relation to those claimed injuries with undetermined liability and
- where it is the dual purpose examiners opinion that the claimed injury is related to the claimed incident, a request for an impairment assessment of the injury/injuries.
Agent to refer issues from report to IIA
Where necessary, the Agent must refer any issues, arising from the report/s, to the IIA. This may include:
- confirmation of the whole person impairment
- confirmation of the injuries identified for assessment, if applicable, in ‘dual purpose’ examinations
- issues with combining of the impairment whole person percentages
- consideration to total loss injuries.
For claims lodged post 18/11/04 WorkSafe may issue Agents with a claims management policy on supplementary reports (if necessary).