Claim closure is a major event in your patient’s work injury claim. What is your role in closing a worker’s compensation case? As the attending physician, you are the most important participant in the closing of a worker’s compensation claim. The attending physician is given extraordinary responsibilities in the closing and many of these responsibilities … Read more
If you are treating a patient whose need for treatment has more than one cause, can you quantify the amount each cause contributes? If your patient has a history of a condition, or even a previously undetected condition, in the same area as a recent work injury, can you state whether the injury has “combined” … Read more
A physician from Klamath Falls asked us recently what options are available to a physician if a Workers’ Compensation case is denied by the carrier. The answer depends on what kind of denial: Has the carrier denied the claim for medical services on the basis that your patient’s claim is not compensable? Or is the … Read more
A Medford physician asks, when does my patient need an attorney for Workers’ Compensation and motor vehicle accident injuries? Not every injured worker needs legal counsel. However, after Senate Bill 369 (1995), the cards are highly stacked against injured workers. An unsophisticated injured worker may delay filing a claim – out of fear of losing … Read more
Under a 1995 change in the workers’ compensation law, when a work injury “combines” with a “preexisting condition,” the work injury must be the major cause of the disability or need for treatment for the “combined condition” to be compensated. There are no easy “rules of thumb” to provide guidance under this new law. It’s a … Read more
You see many patients. You are always pressed for time, knowing another patient is waiting. But taking the time to elicit a good history of any related prior problems is critical to your patients’ work related claims. A good history – along with an analysis of the bio-mechanics of the incident and objective medical findings … Read more
If you have a patient with a work injury, you probably know that your records are vital to her/his compensation claim. But did you know that your patient could lose out totally if your notes don’t meet the new criteria for “objective findings” recently written into Oregon law? The concept of “objective findings” may confuse … Read more
A Grants Pass physician asks, how can physician document causation and determine whether a specific activity/job is at least 51% responsible for a problem? This question is pertinent in Workers’ Compensation law. First, we must recognize the difference between an occupational injury and an occupational disease. An occupational injury is a specific event. An occupational … Read more