The claimant sought entitlement to NEBs and medical benefits; the insurer required the claimant to attend s. 44 insurer’s examinations. The claimant did not attend the IEs and submitted an application to the LAT. The insurer requested a preliminary issue hearing and Adjudicator Farlam found that the claimant was barred from proceeding with her application because she failed to attend s. 44 IEs. The Schedule provides that the onus is on the claimant to put forward a reasonable explanation for non-attendance at an IE. In this case, the claimant failed to attend six s. 44 assessments. The claimant submitted that one was missed due to attending the death of a family member and that another was because the claimant was out of the country, but the claimant did not submit any evidence to establish either of these facts. Further, the claimant failed to offer any persuasive evidence in support of their submissions that the insurer was not prejudiced by the failure to attend the IEs. The Adjudicator accepted the insurer’s submission that it was prejudiced by the passage of time and it had now been deprived of the opportunity to have it’s physicians reasonably assess whether the claimant would meet the eligibility test for NEBs and also whether the disputed treatment plans were reasonable and necessary.
