Mobile Doctors targets 100,000 cases a year

Bolton-based Mobile Doctors, the fast-growing medical reporting agency, has laid out its plan to capture 100,000 instructions a year by 2021.

This would give it more than 10% of a market with hundreds of players.

The company, one of the longest-established names in the medical reporting market, has made a significant investment in sales and marketing, building a five-strong team in just six months, to help achieve the goal.

Mobile Doctors is already a ‘tier 1’ medical reporting agency for MedCo – the Government-backed system for sourcing medical reports in low-value soft-tissue injury claims following road traffic accidents.

To qualify for tier 1, an agency needs to demonstrate the ability to handle 40,000 referrals (MedCo and others) a year.

Mobile Doctors comfortably handles in excess of that currently – having doubled the number of instructions in the past year alone – but the ambition is to increase this to 100,000 referrals by the end of 2021.

The company is pushing back to the fore after a period where it was bought by Quindell in 2011, following which it was rebranded and mainly worked on cases referred by other parts of the group, meaning that external clients fell away.

Quindell, in turn, was acquired by national law firm Slater & Gordon in 2015, which agreed that Mobile Doctors should reclaim its brand.

By then, MedCo had been established, meaning that law firms could not refer clients to their own medical reporting businesses, so over recent years Slater & Gordon has supported Mobile Doctors in building up its external client base once more, to the point where nearly 80% of its work is with other law firms – more than 400 firms have instructed Mobile Doctors through MedCo.

The remaining 20% is handling Slater & Gordon’s non-MedCo cases.

Mobile Doctors has evolved into one of the most successful parts of the Slater & Gordon Group, doubling in size since the acquisition.

Chief operating officer Neil Ross said: “We are in a very competitive market place where everyone has essentially the same product – Mobile Doctors has been able to regain its status through offering both instructing parties and their claimants the highest possible service and ethical standards.

“Our growth since joining the Slater & Gordon Group shows that our ambition of reaching 100,000 instructions is realistic.”

Mr Ross said Mobile Doctors is a strong supporter of the MedCo regime – the two audits it has successfully completed have shown how rigorous it is.

He added: “We have multiple controls in place to ensure we are working with the best-quality, independent and accredited experts, using effective, secure and compliant processes, all of which are documented and evidenced for review in regular internal and future MedCo audits.”

With the Civil Liability Bill currently going through Parliament it is unclear what impact the Government’s whiplash reforms will have on the medical reporting industry.

But Mr Ross said: “I believe that our status as a tier 1 MedCo agency and being part of an organisation with its strategy to strengthen its position as the number one consumer law firm in the UK, will enable us to navigate the reforms successfully.”