Accurately assessing claimant effort during neuropsychological evaluations is critical to helping you make the right claim decisions. Because psychological validity testing is rapidly evolving, this task is becoming increasingly complex. In fact, there are a few psychologists with expertise in statistics who now sometimes effectively challenge the validity conclusions in independent medical evaluations. They do this by attacking the way IME doctors select and interpret validity measures. Further, they can mathematically combine the results of many measures given in earlier IMEs into one statistic, which is meant to reflect the likelihood of valid test results.
To prevent these challenges from threatening the credibility of an IME, PsyBar has developed its ValidityCheck® assessment guidelines, which are not offered by any other IME company. We wrote these guidelines working with several nationally known neuropsychologist validity experts. With them, our neuropsychologists choose validity tests based upon several factors. These include requirements that the tests have been developed according to current professional standards, and include both “stand-alone” validity tests and “embedded measures.” Stand-alone tests are given in isolation, with the sole purpose of assessing validity. Embedded measures are usually short portions of neuropsychological tests that assess skills such as memory, but can also tell the neuropsychologist about claimant effort. Further, we ask all doctors both to choose tests before the examinations begin and to interpret all validity tests given. PsyBar asks for consistency in that our neuropsychologists should use these tests with other similar examinees. They should have a range of specific statistical data supporting their tests. We ask our doctors to have both sound theoretical rationale and statistical data for including or omitting tests. Finally, we point the doctors to research to help them determine whether the combination of all validity test results suggest valid testing.
Each of these actions, often neglected in IMEs, help ensure fair evaluations, protect claimants, and prevent challenges to PsyBar’s neuropsychological IMEs.