Functional capacity evaluation

There was this lack of connection between the complaints about the symptoms and and the doctor's opinions about his inability to do long, irregular overnight hours.

Number five, Dr. Cantagna did not undergo a functional capacity evaluation that would simulate his work activities that could have helped overcome the IME and his doctor's reliance on his self-reported symptoms.

And another mistake was that Dr. Cantagna failed to have a vocational evaluator ultimately review an FCE, and Dr. Cantagna also failed failed to challenge the IME opinion he could work with modification.

So we would have wanted our vocational evaluator, for example, to have reviewed the FCE that Dr. Cantagno should have undergone, and then challenged the IME opinion that he could work on modification based on the results of the FCE and the vocational evaluator's understanding of Dr. Cantagna's job duties.

And ultimately, the court upheld Unum's denial because Cantagna had failed to provide objective medical evidence to substantiate his subjective complaints about his inability to work long hours and be on call.

Even though this policy did not require objective evidence, you can see that there were gaps here in the proof and Relying on subjective medical complaints is not going to win a claim.