Sometimes it helps to get an independent neutral person with recognised qualifications, skills, and experience to express a competent view on the issues in your case. We know that a lot of people involved in the ACC dispute resolution process withdraw their review application and it takes on average a few months. Many people would benefit from an early neutral evaluation so we've developed a trial to do this.
An Early Neutral Evaluation
Access to an early neutral evaluation is a confidential informal service where we use an independent, neutral person to evaluate the case by considering the facts, expert evidence, and the law.
We know that the availability of an early neutral evaluation can help identify issues and inform approaches to resolution. It can assist in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a case, identify procedural issues, and set out further information or expert evidence that will assist with resolving the issues. If further expert evidence is required, the evaluator will explain this, and the questions that need to be answered by the assessor.
The expert evaluation will be provided to you and it is confidential to you, your advocate, and any expert assessor who is asked to answer the evaluator's questions (for example a medical opinion on causation).
Pilot of Early Neutral Evaluation Services
A pilot of this service will begin in March 2024. It will begin with specific types of disputes and it will then expand to include all dispute types which might benefit from this service. You can discuss with your advocate whether your case is eligible to be involved with this pilot and whether this is a service you would like to use.
This service will be provided by The Know Company Limited (The Know Co.) and aims to provide this evaluation once the relevant files have been provided.
There will be a cost to participating in this trial, but you can talk to your advocate about this. Our Advocacy Service may be able to fund this cost and then seek reimbursement of this cost as a disbursement from ACC through the Review Costs and Appeals Regulations.
A pilot of this service is available now for clients from our Advocacy Service to use (if they meet the criteria for inclusion). The trial will be evaluated. If successful, the service will be expanded from mid-2024.