Curtailing RTA fraud is important, but the solution is not MedCo, as Theo Richardson-Gool explains
Since early April practitioners have had to use the Medco portal for experts and medical agencies for all soft tissue injury claims entering the Road Traffic Accidents Portal. MedCo was introduced as part of the plans to clamp down on fraudulent claims, signaling a stated commitment by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to end the era of “questionable whiplash claims by making sure all medical reports are above suspicion”.
The MedCo portal offers the user the option of instructing a “Direct Medical Expert” or “Medical Reporting Organisation” (MROs), both of which require some initial information to be input into the portal which then produces a randomised list of experts and MROs. This “Direct Medical Expert search” displays the results of seven independent medical experts within a 5 to 30 mile radius of the injured party, but does not display the experts’ CVs nor show all of the locations where the experts have medical appointments or even the days and times of their availability. In essence it provides inadequate information to make
