As regular readers will readily recall, HMG invited folks a whiles back to have their say on the MoJ’s since-abandoned plans to outlaw trifling personal injury claims to save decent ordinary motorists some money on their sky-high insurance premiums.
One of the parties responding to this invitation was MadCo, the body charged with accrediting and keeping an eye on medical report manufacturers.
It’s been widely reported this week that MadCo’s lately found it necessary to fire out warning letters to medical report makers on pretty much a daily basis and to suspend 235 users of its porthole (through which medical reporters now have to pass their output) in a single year.
MadCo’s submission to the Juice Select Committee also revealed the not-for-profit body’s grave concerns over an anticipated explosion in litigants in personae (LiPs) should the MoJ smite down with furious vengeance upon whiplash claimants and their good-for-nothing kind.
MadCo says its porthole was not designed for litigant-in-persons and would have to be substantially overhauled to accommodate such individuals. It also worried that LiPs might inappropriately encourage or entice makers of medical reports to sex up their reports to secure a better pay out. Imagine such a thing!
It’d been a slow week in the medical reporting game when this gorilla in a suit two sizes too small strolled into my office.
“I got this pain, see,” he told me, running his meaty paw with exaggerated delicacy down the side of his swarthy cheek. “Yeah, this pain in my neck, Doc,” he clarified, belatedly adjusting the position of his hand towards the back of his head.
“Uh huh,” I confirmed noncommittally.”
“Some clown in a Studebaker stopped dead, right in front of me,” he went on, “and now I got nothing but pain, Doc. Night and day. Real bad pain.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mr…?”
“Scazzottata, Johnny Scazzottata,” the big man growled, sotto voce, like his name was some kind of warning.
“OK, Johnny,” I said, “let’s take a look and see what we got here.”
As I took a step towards him, Scazzottata’s fists came up in a flash, one behind the other. Just as fast, I took that step right back.
“Just write the scrip,” he told me, “and make it a good one. Or it might not be just that guy in the Studebaker that’s stopping dead in front of me. If you get my meaning.”
I did what he asked.
“Pleasure doing business, Mr S,” I ventured wryly, almost as soon as the door closed firmly behind him.
After that, I needed a change of pace. Boy, did I get one.
She had my full attention the second she swayed in through the door. She wore a snug-fitting black skirt and jacket combination, with a black silk blouse beneath, black stockings, black stiletto heels, and long black hair piled up sort of casual but elegant to frame that unforgettable face. If I said she was all woman, I’d be selling her way short.
“I, ah… I got this pain,” she confided breathily, resting her perfectly manicured right hand lightly above the top of her sternum.
“Uh huh,” I confirmed, as noncommittally as I could under the circumstances.”
“It sort of starts in my neck,” she whispered huskily, as her fingers trailed lazily down past the open second button of her blouse, “and goes all the way…”
She paused, flicked open the gently yielding third button and, fixing me with smouldering dark eyes, said simply “here.”
“Uh huh,” I said again, dry-mouthed, for lack of better inspiration.
“I was thinking maybe you could… take a look,” she suggested. Needlessly. Looking was all I could do.
“But,” she continued, not altogether persuasively, “I’m a little shy. You see,” (another of those killing pauses) “I have nothing underneath this blouse.”
She had something under that blouse, alright. I’d say maybe a couple of things.
I leant on the intercom. “No calls, Miss Jones.”
“Easy Tiger. Paperwork first!”
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