FAQs about MacBeal posed by both Experts and Instructors

FAQs posed by Experts

FAQs posed by Instructors

FAQs about medical transcription

For an instructor, there are many challenges associated with obtaining medical expert opinion. Finding the right medical expert with the right specialism who is within a reasonable distance to a claimant and has an available appointment is a time consuming task.

On the other hand, one of the major issues faced by medical experts is to market themselves, their expertise and their available time to instructors across the country. MacBeal puts a medical expert on the map for instructors nationwide.

MacBeal helps save time and resources not only through the quick ‘search and book’ functions but also through its safe and secure electronic document exchange service. This allows two-way instant communication between MacBeal members.

MacBeal is a subscription based business. We offer our services to medical experts at a low monthly fee per user. We also charge a low booking fee for each appointment that is booked by an instructing party via the MacBeal online booking system.

MacBeal is a free service to solicitors.

Our subscription charges and booking fees are low because there is little or no intervention required from MacBeal staff to help the instructors and experts get on with their business via the online services provided on MacBeal website.

Medical Experts are charged £9.95 per month per user with a £1 booking fee for each appointment they receive from an Instructor via the MacBeal online booking system. (VAT is added to the prices quoted here). To make it attractive, MacBeal is offering a free trial to new members.

For Solicitors the free MacBeal service provides massive savings on a per report basis against going via other avenues and doing the legwork internally. Also, the instant online booking feature saves significant time in obtaining an appointment for a claimant.

We will, however, charge the Expert a booking fee of £1 for each additional appointment booked during the trial period. We will also charge you for any other chargeable services but you will be informed beforehand about such a charge so that there is no surprise. Please see PRICING for more details.

Please note that during the free trial you are bound by the Terms of Use of MacBeal. You are required to honour any appointments booked or other commitments undertaken during the trial period.

The free trial is available only once per member.

It is our aim that every user stays with MacBeal on a regular basis so that all members can enjoy a low monthly subscription fee. We incur administrative costs to activate the account of every new MacBeal member. Hence, a ‘reactivation fee’ of £25 plus VAT will be charged for returning customers.

If you wish to leave MacBeal for any reason simply put this in writing to:

Membership Services
MacBeal Limited
100 Commerce House
High Street
Sutton Coldfield
West Midlands
B72 1AB
Fax: 0845-331-2070

Please note that we do not offer referral discounts for new MacBeal users who join MacBeal under an existing MacBeal Licence Code. Referral discounts are earned for each ‘new’ account that you bring to MacBeal. For more details, please see our Terms and Conditions in the Legal Info section.

Also, invoicing becomes easier to paying members. We furnish one invoice for each MacBeal licence code. So in the case of a medical practice with several MacBeal users under one MacBeal licence code, we will issue one monthly invoice for the services utilised by the whole group of experts in that account.

What is MacBeal ID (MID)?

Each Expert and Solicitor MacBeal member is assigned a unique MacBeal ID (MID) number. The MID of a Solicitor starts with an "S" and that of an Expert starts with an "E". MID helps to look up a MacBeal member quickly and also helps to distinguish between members with same name.

It is possible to export and download a report from MacBeal onto the user’s computer as an Excel spreadsheet. This allows the user to sort, slice and dice the account activity report as required for their internal purposes.

To allow you to be compliant to the Data Protection Act 1998 and to keep the information about claimants confidential, MacBeal enables its members to send and receive messages and documents securely.

To maintain security, MacBeal keeps a message or document for 14 days only after it has been sent. We require MacBeal users to read or download documents within a fortnight. Once the 14 days have passed, the message expires and the attached documents are deleted from the MacBeal system. MacBeal only maintains the subject line of the expired messages and the name and size of the attached documents of an expired message. This allows you keep a record of what was sent or received via MacBeal Document Exchange.

Please note that MacBeal accepts no responsibility for ensuring the delivery of a message or document in case of any rare technical fault - as can happen with any delivery system. MacBeal accepts no liability for any problems that arise from viruses or malware that comes through a document received via the Document Exchange System. Please ensure that you have adequate virus and malware protection on your computer.

It is our aim to mitigate fraud and to ensure that all MacBeal users are authentic in their purpose of joining MacBeal. Requiring a valid credit or debit card is intended to decrease the likelihood that malicious users will sign up. We also require a credit or debit card to facilitate payment of chargeable services availed during the free trial (for example, booking of more than one appointment via the MacBeal online booking system draws a booking fee. Also, if you use any other service like one-to-one training etc. we will need your card details to charge you for such services). At the conclusion of the free trial period, if you decide to continue using MacBeal, then there will be continuity as your payment method would have been established already and we can put you onto our monthly subscription payment process. You will be able to continue using our services without interruption and without having to submit additional account details.

MacBeal accepts VISA or MasterCard credit cards as well as VISA electron or DELTA debit cards as well as Switch and Solo. We generally do not accept any other form of payment, as our goal is to minimise our costs of doing business in order to pass the savings onto our customers.

For MacBeal Transcription, we also accept cheques.

For more details about security of payment card details please read our Terms of Use or call us.

You do not need to offer appointments to be on MacBeal as a medical expert. But it is likely that other experts who do offer appointments will get instructions through the MacBeal online booking system.

Yes. MacBeal makes no effort to stop you continuing to accept instructions from any other sources.

Do I loose the appointment slots that I have posted on MacBeal?

No. Once you have posted any appointment slots on MacBeal they still belong to you. If you want to use any of those appointments yourself, you still can, provided they have not already been booked by an instructing party.

We are continually adding new experts to the MacBeal panel. Any such endeavour requires time. If you draw a blank with a search for an expert then please send us an email detailing the search to search@macbeal.com or you can send us a fax with your request. We will endeavour to find and add an appropriate expert to the MacBeal panel as soon as possible. If you know medical experts whom you would like to see included as panel members on MacBeal, then either recommend those experts to join MacBeal (you will get a referral discount) or provide us with their details and we will be happy to invite them on board so that you can have the convenience of booking appointment slots for your claimants with them online.

In case you need immediate help, we do have a service whereby we will find up to three experts for your search for a fee of £49 + VAT. To proceed with such a search we request you to send us a fax using your firm’s stationery and detailing your requirements and also stating that you agree to our reasonable fees. Upon receipt of such a fax, we will start the search and provide you the names of up to three experts that suit your needs.

Both the solicitor and doctor are responsible for the actions that are undertaken on their behalf by their secretaries or case-handlers.

If your firm is based in England & Wales, then we require your law-firm ID number with the Law Society of England & Wales.