Functional Capacity Evaluations in North and South Carolina

Videotaping an FCE? Here’s Why It Isn’t Allowed (and Why It Matters).

Every so often, someone asks whether a Functional Capacity Evaluation (FCE) can be videotaped. It’s an understandable question — but the answer is no, and the reasoning is important for anyone working in workers’ compensation or disability evaluations.

In a physical, performance-based exam, people simply do not behave the same way when a camera is present. Behavior changes. Effort changes. Movement patterns change. Guarding increases or decreases. Even small alterations can make the results no longer reflect real-world ability.

This isn’t theory — it’s well-documented, the Hawthorne Effect.
If someone knows they’re being recorded, they perform differently. And when behavior changes, the measurement changes. For an FCE, that’s a critical problem.

An FCE’s value depends on:

-natural performance
-consistent testing conditions
-unbiased observation
-standardized methodology

Videotaping impacts all four.

It introduces variables that no validated FCE protocol accounts for, and it breaks the standardization required for accuracy, reliability, and fairness. This is why videotaping isn’t part of accepted clinical practice in any medical evaluation — and why we apply the policy uniformly to every examinee.

Our goal is always the same: provide the most accurate, fair, and defensible measurement of functional ability. A controlled, camera-free environment is essential for that.

If you work with FCEs — whether as an adjuster, attorney, case manager, or clinician — understanding this distinction helps protect the integrity of the process and ensures the results can be trusted.