There is no secret to the conduct of a successful review application. Everything depends on a complete understanding of the insured person’s ACC file and the implications that the file has on the application of the Statute by which cover has been originally granted or the statute by which a decision has been made.

Our experience as hands on advocates provides a unique perspective on the way in which ACC and CATALYST case managers operate in a way that is not available to most legal counsel that undertake ACC reviews. An ACC review is a specialised field of endeavour for which our service is demonstrably focused and empowered from the outset of a review application.

Having established the issue at review our first step is to gain the insured person’s complete file from ACC and if necessary we also seek third party files that may not necessarily be held by ACC.

We then data base in chronological order from the insured person’s file the relevant extracts of documents that we identify as being related to the issue at review. The effort and cost involved of data basing the file documents that we have titled as a ‘Strategic Report’ has the following advantages: -

• This usually determines that by the time that we go to review we present far more relevant documents for the reviewer to take into account against the arguments that we put forward. It is noticeable how often ACC or CATALYST case managers fail to include all of the documents that should be put forward at the time of the review.

• The chronological snap shots offered by the data base enables the identification of actions by all of those providors and profeesionals who have been associated with the file in any way. This is a very important process as the arguments of fact or omission and commission can be identified and related to a specific point in time.

• Data basing the file also opens up the avenue of identifying missing documents from an insured person’s file, which for the review of an issue can become an important fact in itself.

• The method that we employ in data basing the file identifies the legal arguments and or case law that may be appropriate to the particular review.

Where it is evident that there should be an independent third party opinion relevant to the issue at hand we prepare the necessary questions to be put to the third party and provide all of the relevant documents that we have identified along with a copy of our databased ‘Strategic Report’. The reason for seeking an independent third party opinion so early in the review process is that where a review application is reasonably brought, even if the review application fails the cost of the independent report is met by ACC.

We always provide the reviewer with a copy of our submissions well before the hearing date, which provides the reviewer with an opportunity of understanding the grounds and arguments that we have determined to present at review.

ACC and CATALYST case managers have a policy of ambushing review applicants by presenting their submissions AFTER the ACC recipient has presented their submissions during the review hearing. This policy is unconscionably immoral, as in all other legal forums the party that has made an adverse decision such as that brought to a review hearing are required to make their legal submissions available to the appellant BEFORE the review hearing commences. By ACC providing an insured person their submissions half way through the review hearing the ACC and CATALYST case manager's deliberately disadvantage those insured person’s who are not represented at review and for that matter those persons who are able to afford to employ legal counsel.

We never provide the ACC or CATALYST case manager with a copy of our client’s submissions until the review hearing commences in retaliation to the unprincipled manner that ACC conceals its supporting arguments. It is our form of settling accounts for the highly immoral way that the ACC or CATALYST case managers conceal the basis of their reasoning when making adverse decisions against ACC recipients.

The best retribution however is to succeed at the review hearing.