NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
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As previously
mentioned, House Bill 2702 would have revised portions of the Labor Code by
tagging insurance carriers with an additional expense: a fee for a missed
medical examination. The bill failed to pass the Senate in May 2023, but
its most dubious component has found new life in the DWC’s proposed Rule
134.240(b).
Under the newly drafted rule, an injured worker who fails to attend an
examination by a designated doctor would endure the eternal ignominy of
subjecting his or her workers’ compensation carrier to an additional $100.00
fee. That’ll show ‘em!
You read that correctly—the insurance carrier would be subjected to what
amounts to a fine for an AWOL claimant’s missed DD exam. (And in case you
were wondering, no, the rule does not permit an insurance carrier to take a credit
for that fee from later benefits.)
This change to DD exam billing is intended, one assumes, to offset the lost
time from patients and the general inconvenience experienced by doctors whose
examinees are M.I.A. However, imposing an additional fee on the insurance
carrier for the injured worker’s truancy may invite challenges over the
perceived fairness of the measure, especially in instances where the missed
exam was requested by the Claimant or Claimant’s attorney; the proposed rule
does not take into consideration the party that sought the exam.
Copyright 2023, Stone Loughlin & Swanson, LLP