Money Makes The World Go ‘Round
We have looked before at the big money ICBC pays to their favourite doctors, to write reports and testify to deny Plaintiff’s injuries. Each year we check ICBC’s Statements and Schedules Of Financial Information, which are published on-line as part of their annual reports. The 2013 Statements are here.
The Statements show payments to suppliers of goods and services. Like defence experts. But they don’t tell the whole story. Many defence experts receive payments through “expert agencies”. These agencies typically book experts well in advance, then sell the date to ICBC. ICBC then pays the expert agency, which in turn pays the defence expert. Or, the ICBC defence law firm pays the expert or the “expert agency”. ICBC then reimburses the defence law firm as a disbursement to the file. The result is that the payment to the expert is hidden from public scrutiny. Those “expert agencies” we know of are called “CIRA Medical Services”, “IMA Solutions”,“Keyfacts Enterprises Inc.”, “Medisys“, Specialist Referral Clinic, and “The IME Company”. CIRA has emerged as the largest.
It’s also true that many of ICBC’s favourite doctors also get hired by WCB to oppose workers’ claims for benefits. Those billings are not practically accessible to Freedom of Information requests. WCB claims it does not keep records of payments indexed by doctor’s name.
It’s a cat-and-mouse game: The defence doctor’s billings for defence work are not fully disclosed in the ICBC financials. Plaintiff lawyers ask at trial how much the defence doctor gets through one of these other payors. Then we try to let all our colleagues know, get a transcript of the defence doctor’s admission, etc.
What we can say, is that whatever shows up in ICBC’s Statements and Schedules Of Financial Information is not the total amount that defence expert was paid to oppose injury claimants.
With that caveat, here are the numbers for some of ICBC’s top-billing defence experts:
| ICBC Doctors | Specialty | 2013 ICBC Payment | 2004-2013 ICBC Total |
| Solomons, Kevin | Psychiatry | $710,788 | $3,954,231 |
| Smith, Derryck | Psychiatry | $458,949 | $3,921,014 |
| Tessler, Bernard | Neurology | $574,856 | $3,575,251 |
| Semrau, Stanley | Psychiatry | $556,841 | $3,489,778 |
| Levin, Alexander | Psychiatry | $859,237 | $3,037,530 |
| Maloon, Stephen | Orthopedics | $455,588 | $3,011,211 |
| Sovio, Olli | Orthopedics | $539,369 | $3,006,058 |
| Bishop, Paul | GP | $190,739 | $2,863,672 |
| Rees, Peter * | Neurology | $279,471 | $2,790,609 |
| Boyle, Marc | Orthopedics | $293,819 | $2,514,053 |
| Reebye, Nittin Kumar | Physical med. & rehab | $363,337 | $2,505,463 |
| Favero, Kenneth | Orthopedics | $192,770 | $2,496,688 |
| O’Shaughnessy, Roy | Psychiatry | $422,463 | $2,329,974 |
| Wong, Kai-Hong | Neurology | $316,080 | $2,253,889 |
| Domisse, Iain | Orthopedics | $212,678 | $2,198,183 |
| David, Eyetan | Otolaryngology | $300,135 | $1,569,316 |
| Piper, Michael | Orthopedics | $281,270 | $1,280,086 |
| Loomer, Richard | Orthopedics | $149,922 | $921,039 |
| Riar, Kulwant | Psychiatry | $151,775 | $859,550 |
* Dr. Rees testified in Jampolsky v. Shattler (Oct 2010) that he had made at least $400k/yr from ICBC in the prior 5 years, and that any amount not shown in ICBC’s financial statements was paid to him directly by ICBC defence counsel. I have the transcript.