What is an EUO? 

Understanding EUO

An EUO is the letter that the acronym is E-U-O, and that stands for Examination Under Oath. And the exam, what is an examination under oath? That is basically a request from the insurance company in an automobile accident case to examine you under oath regarding certain questions they may have for you concerning the accident.

 

Scheduling and Notification

Now, the examination under oath usually is scheduled through a letter, and if you’re represented by an attorney, that letter would normally be sent to you and the attorney.

 

Examination

For the examination under oath, the underlying authority to conduct such an examination stems from your underlying insurance policy. If you read your insurance policy carefully for your automobile, there’s usually a provision in there that indicates that if we need to examine you under oath at any period of time during the duration of your policy, that we have a right to do that. Now, for the examination under old, it’s much more broader than a deposition. In the examination under old, they will basically, in the form of a letter in written form.

Now, with an examination under oath, usually you can reschedule it up to one time. If you miss an examination under oath after rescheduling at one time, then your policy will be denied for QO violation. What that means is that pursuant to the policy, you fail to satisfy a condition, which is to appear for an examination under oath. And as a result, all of your benefits in the policy can be denied retroactively. What that means is that your benefits can be denied from the inception of the policy.

Now with the examination under oath, the questions that they usually ask you are questions regarding where you live, your background, who you live with, what you do for your employment, whether you have a criminal record, and then they get into details regarding how the accident happened, as well as what are the injuries sustained and what treatment you’ve received for those injuries.

Although I’ve summarized that in a sentence, the question can last typically for two to three hours and sometimes even longer. It’s very important to be prepared for an examination under oath because sometimes they may present questions which you don’t remember the answer to, or you may even answer a question incorrectly because your memory wasn’t refreshed or your recollection wasn’t refreshed. It’s always important to look at the police report prior to an examination under oath to prepare so that you remember sensitive details about the accident, including the date of accident, the time of accident, the location of accident, the mechanism of injury, as well as the points of contact.

You also want to look at the injuries you sustained specifically to what body part because you’ll be questioned on that thoroughly. Additionally, at the examination under oath, they’ll ask you questions specifically regarding your treatment as the questions will stem, regardless, delete that one. The questions that they will ask you about your treatment are who you have treated with in terms of providers. So you want to try to remember the physician’s name, the location of where you got treatment, the duration of treatment, such as if you’re going to therapy one time a week at the beginning or two times a week, they want specific answers.

Also, they’ll ask you about the actual services that you had throughout the treatment, such as MRI, physical therapy, chiropractic therapy, acupuncture treatment, orthopedic treatment, pain management, spinal treatment, etc. You want to also be able to articulate what injuries you’ve sustained and how that’s impacted your life, which is very important because at the end of the day, the examination under oath is reduced to a transcript. Normally the examination under oath is conducted with several parties present. It can be in person or it can be remote.

 

Uncovering Reasons for EUO

Additionally, a lot of times, if you’re prepared well for an examination under oath, you can discover the reason as to why the insurance company may be conducting the examination under oath.

Normally, it could relate to your billing, as in you’re not billing pursuant to a certain fee schedule, because with respect to no-fault regulations, you have to bill pursuant to the fee schedule. It can also relate to certain services that you’ve provided and whether you’ve actually provided those services. Additionally, there could be other questions, such as the anti-kickback statute legislation issues, or it can involve certain criminality conducted by the physician.

If he’s submitted bills falsely or he’s engaged in certain activity that’s not authorized. It’s very important to look at the specific cases and to identify why an EEOC was conducted prior to appearing.

 

Transcription and Sworn Oath

The commonality in an EUO is that the questions that are being asked as well as the answers are all being transcribed by a court reporter. Also, you’re sworn under oath, that you’ll tell the truth, and nothing but the truth throughout the process. That transcript ultimately can be used at trial or any other forum. So it’s important that you understand the question and answer the questions correctly because it can affect your entire accident, third-party case ultimately. In the examination under oath, you want to also make sure that you come off as being credible because your adversary is usually judging your credibility.

Additionally, you want to make sure that in the examination under oath that you’re dressed appropriately because appearance makes a big difference. At the examination under oath, if you need an interpreter, one must be requested and will be provided. Additionally, if you do an examination under oath, you should always listen to your attorney because your attorney is going to guide you as to whether you should answer certain questions or whether you should deflect certain questions under certain circumstances.

That transcript ultimately can be used by that insurance company in subsequent proceedings in court to justify why they shouldn’t pay certain bills and why you engage in certain conduct and how they can prove that based on your testimony.

 

Attorney’s Role and Objections

Additionally, with the examination under oath, if you have an attorney by your side, a lot of times you can pose certain objections to certain completely irrelevant and inappropriate questions. for your questioning. Although the scope of the EOO is broad, it is not unlimited. Additionally, based on the answers to the questions presented, and depending on the conduct that you’ve engaged in, you may not be even aware, but it could amount to not only civil penalties, but also criminal penalties if certain conduct has occurred. That’s, in summary, a EU lawful provider.

An attorney can always object on the record to certain questions if they’re totally inappropriate. But the scope of an EO is much broader than So failure to answer a question in an examination under oath could still result in a denial of your policy because you refuse to cooperate completely.

 

 

Post-Examination Procedures

Also in an examination under oath, once it’s concluded several weeks later, a transcript is mailed out to your attorney or to you directly if youíre the patient or client. In that transcript, it’ll be everything youíve said in the EO, but itís transcribed into a transcript. In that transcript, thereís an errata sheet that allows you to make corrections if thereís certain mistakes that you’ve made in the EO.

So that’s why it’s very important to review your transcript and make sure that you correct any mistakes if any occur. Throughout the process of the question and answer, sometimes a court reporter may not understand a certain person or you may be speaking too fast. And as a result, they may incorrectly transcribe your response. So you want to make sure you read the transcript thoroughly and make any changes that are necessary.

The last part is that you will be signing your transcript, and in there you will also have to have it notarized, which means that it can be used against you in other forums as well. That’s an examination under oath in a nutshell for patients.