Baseline Functioning in a Civil Psychiatric IME

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Civil Psychiatric IME

The contested question in a psychiatric damages case is rarely whether the plaintiff is impaired now. It is how much of the impairment is new, how much was already present, and how much can fairly be attributed to the event in suit. That question cannot be answered from the present-day examination alone. Without a baseline, the examiner is trying to reconstruct a trajectory from a single point. What baseline means Baseline functioning is the plaintiff’s pre-incident psychiatric and functional condition. It includes diagnoses, symptom burden, treatment history, medication use, work function, social function, substance use, prior trauma, and major stressors. It also includes periods of remissi

Most relevant service: Civil Litigation IME & Damages Causation