ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the information insurance physicians have at their disposal to assess employment disability and how they verify this information. DESIGN: Descriptive. METHOD: In the period January 1999-April 2000, data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with 19 insurance physicians from the 5 social insurance companies and from observations of 73 consultations conducted by 6 experienced insurance physicians. RESULTS: The average duration of the consultations between the insurance physicians and the clients was 30 minutes. Within these consultations, several issues were briefly discussed. The information obtained by the insurance physicians was limited to the first day of illness, a general description of the complaints and a code for the diagnoses. In 23 cases (32%) the insurance physicians requested information from the attending physician, and in 2 cases (3%) an expert opinion was requested. CONCLUSION: For the insurance physicians, the client was often the most important or indeed sole source of information. Often there was no other information against which the patient's data could be verified and such information was mostly not requested.
