Medilaw’s story spans more than 20 years, when a group of doctors in Brisbane saw opportunities for improvement in the medical opinion services industry.
Assoc Prof Richard Williams, Dr Brett Halliday and Prof Peter Steadman, each respected medical specialists, wanted to establish a doctor-led opinion service. The aim was to provide robust, evidence-based reports and balanced medical opinion that would withstand scrutiny and provide a way forward for people and organisations after injury or illness.
A new way
In 2000, Dr Halliday, Assoc Prof Williams and Prof Steadman formed Medilaw, a company that would offer something that was not yet widely available but for which there was a strong demand – fair and balanced opinions to the personal injury, workers compensation and insurance industries.
Their panel of specialists would be approachable and methodical, taking the time to understand the client’s circumstances and condition, while applying their medical expertise and experience to arrive at a considered opinion.
Soon Medilaw became widely known and in demand, with services expanding first across regional Queensland, then to Victoria, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and across Australia.
Along the way, Medilaw became the first medico-legal firm with ISO certification, giving its customers the confidence of a quality service that fulfils their needs and expectations.
Better together
From 2017, Medilaw joined Perth-based provider Next Health Group, and New South Wales providers the Australian Medico-Legal Group (AMLG) and Medico Legal Opinions (MLO), to become Medilaw Group, a national collection of like-minded and quality-focused organisations.
In September 2021, it was announced that AMLG and MLO would merge with and be known as Medilaw. This was a natural step given the businesses had worked closely together under the umbrella of the broader Medilaw Group for a number of years.
As the single entity of Medilaw, customers enjoy easy access to a broader pool of independent medical specialists and all the benefits of streamlined and consistent processes.
Medilaw Group today consists of Medilaw on the east coast and in central Australia, Next Health on the west coast (servicing Western Australia and the Northern Territory) and MindSense Centre of Psychiatry.
Medilaw today
While Medilaw has expanded across Australia to become a significant provider of independent medical opinion, we retain a streamlined organisational structure that optimises our responsiveness. Our customers benefit from direct access to local operational management, meaning fast access to the right medical specialist for any case.
Today, our 100+ consultants work from their own rooms or Medilaw’s purpose-built, state-of-the-art facilities, producing more than 8,000 balanced medical opinion reports every year. We have the expertise to review the rarest of conditions or multi-faceted cases, along with an unrivalled understanding of the growing complexity of compensation and legislative environments.
No matter which opinion service is undertaken, the outcome remains the same: a way forward for people with injury or illness and for organisations managing compensation schemes.