Delegates should be wary of purported new claims where the medical evidence relied upon by the claimant is in fact an alternative 'label' for a condition for which there is already a liability decision. For instance, if a Delegat — e had previously accepted liability for 'split medial meniscus, left knee' and the client upon visiting another specialist submits a claim for 'bucket handle tear, left knee cartilage' there is no case for an entirely new claim. A — t the most, there may be a case for changing the diagnosis of the accepted (or rejected) condition.
This situation arises most commonly in the case of psychiatric ailments, where different specialists may label the same suite of symptoms with different v — ariations of the same DSM-IV diagnostic 'complex'. Delegates may need to seek expert medical advice, in those cases, to establish whether in fact the new claim duplicates an older determination.