I have had an interesting correspondence with the Victorian Transport Accident Commission. It has been a salutary lesson in teasing out the meanings of bureaucratic jargon as you will see. I have posted all correspondence in the Resources Section. The background to this were the amendments that were made to the Victorian Transport Accident Act in 2013. One of the amendments (when translated) was:
The commission will only pay for medicolegal reports if the report is requested jointly by the commission and the plaintiff solicitor and the report is provided to both parties.
This was to take effect from 1 July 2014. There was a form of consultation with regard to an appropriate fee schedule and we were arbitrarily informed that the fee set would be 30% above the usual TAC fee with no extras. I and others complained about this as it was significantly lower than our usual fee. I received several cryptic letters from the TAC that I interpreted, apparently correctly. The first was agreeing to pay additional costs for particular cases where there was some complexity or excessive reading and so forth and subsequently the second appeared to agree to me charging my usual fee.
I have since done so. The message is keep hammering away at these authorities, they have no idea about the type of work we do, the complexity of the work, the responsibility we have and we seem to be regarded as a necessary evil.
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