GPs working in the medico-legal field find it difficult to get paid. We work as individuals, so any single GP can be cheated out of payments without the wider body of GPs ever getting to know about it.
Furthermore, medicolegal agencies, particularly, seem not to realise that we are crucial to them and so feel free to push us around. I would like this balance of power to change.
I propose forming a database of medicolegal GPs, which would include their assessment of the reliability of the individual solicitors or agencies for which they work or have worked.
If you wish to be on the database, contact me at haldane.pounds@tiscali.co.uk (I'm not giving my real name, for obvious reasons). Let me know your list of solicitors and agencies, scoring each on a scale of 0 (no payment received) to 5 (payment always, or very nearly always, received as per your contract).
If I get enough responses to make the results reliable, I will promulgate these and we can then decide, as a group, how best to push the unreliable either into fair practice or out of business.
I only need your e-mail address. No other detail is required, as the database will have no other use.
This approach is no threat to the volume of your business. Accidents will still happen and have to be processed. The effect will be simply that the work will stem from organisations that pay reliably.
Lastly, I'd advise anyone who is having a problem getting paid to use the small claims procedure - it is very easy.
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