Skip to main content

Viewing Psych Reports Through A Different Lens

    I have been doing medical-legal evaluations on a psychological basis for over 30 years. In addition to evaluating patients with personal injury or workers’ compensation claims, I am firmly dedicated to discrediting poorly-written psych reports and helping attorneys see better outcomes with their psych cases. For over 10 years I have been writing Apricots™. Apricots™ are written reports that describe the major flaws that exist in psych reports using easy-to-understand terminology that provides information that an attorney needs to successfully cross-examine a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a neuropsychologist and/or draft a brief for the court. It also provides an extensive list of questions that will expose the flaws in a psych doctor’s report during cross-examination. 

    Through my work over the years, I have become aware that attorneys who cross-examine psych doctors typically prepare for this task by designing questions directed at the doctor’s conclusions in one or more of five areas. Those five areas are the doctor’s conclusions about 

1) causation 

2) the GAF score 

3) temporary and permanent disability 

4) apportionment 

5) treatment recommendations. 

    To those attorneys, I say “this approach is all wrong! You should never attack the doctor’s conclusions in these five areas.” Why, you ask? The answer is simple. When asked about their conclusions of causation, the GAF score, disability, apportionment and treatment recommendations, psychologists, psychiatrists and neuropsychiatrists, may simply testify, “What I stated in my report is my best professional opinion.” Quite simply, when the doctor resorts to their “best professional opinion,” it’s case closed. There is little room for the attorney to see good outcomes with the cross-examination at that point. 

    Therefore, I strongly encourage attorneys to view psych reports through a different lens. Instead of looking for evidence to question causation, GAF, disability, apportionment,treatment recommendations, question the doctor’s data supporting their diagnosis. This is where attorneys will have the most success because the majority of psych reports written for the courts lack sufficient evidence to support the doctor’s diagnosis. 

    The diagnosis is the most vulnerable part of any psych report. When the diagnosis is effectively attacked, this approach will force the doctor to testify that there were insufficient data in his or her report to support their diagnosis. Once these errors are exposed, all of the other conclusions about things like causality, disability, prior pathology and the need for treatment fall by the wayside like a collapsing house of cards.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Psychiatrists and Psychological Testing: A Frequent Nightmare

     As a psychologist who helps attorneys effectively cross-examine psychiatrists and psychologists I frequently have the opportunity to read depositions and trial records.       In those cross-examinations, psychiatrists are often asked about the results of psychological testing that is sometimes completely left out of their examinations and reports.       The most bizarre testimonies are in response to questions about their failure to administer a keystone psychological test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). More often than you might imagine, a psychiatrist will openly testify something like, “I didn’t give an MMPI because I’m not an expert in psychological testing.”       This kind of answer is bizarre because a forensic psychiatrist’s job is to evaluate the patient and arrive at a conclusion about whether or not they have a psychological disorder, and if so, what is it’s likely cause, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It Takes A Renegade Psychologist To Expose Flawed Psych Reports

     I’ve been writing this newsletter and publishing one issue each month since 2009. This is the 140th issue of my newsletter providing what I feel is valuable information for attorneys and insurance adjusters who read medical-legal reports from psychologists, psychiatrists and neuropsychologists. All of my newsletters can be downloaded for free from my website: DrLeckartWETC.com. The motivation for writing these newsletters has been my 30+ years of evaluating approximately 10,000 personal injury and workers’ compensation litigants and my time as a university professor at San Diego State University, during which it has been no secret that psychologists, psychiatrists and neuropsychologists who write medical-legal reports count on not being called on their errors because it is difficult to find a doctor who is willing to stand up and call them on their mistakes. Perhaps they count on their “fraternity” and “sorority” brothers and sisters in the profession not to make wav...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Economics of Dismantling Flawed Psych Reports

     I’ve been doing personal injury and workers’ compensation psych cases for over thirty years. In that time I have evaluated about 10,000 claimants. I’ve also reviewed about 50,000 psych reports. For the last 12 years I have written reports and given testimony that conclusively demonstrates that the vast majority of the opposing doctor’s reports are substantially flawed and can be revealed on cross-examination of the doctor to be worthless with regard to a judge and/or jury drawing a reasonable conclusion that a claimant has had a psychiatric injury. As part of what I write in my reports, which are commissioned to critique the opposing doctor’s conclusions, I provide attorneys with a specifically designed line of direct questions that demonstrate to even the most unsophisticated juror the worthlessness of the opposing doctor’s opinions.       My reports are not inexpensive. A typical report costs between $6,000 and $10,000, depending on the number ...
Post a Comment
Read more