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Scott Law Firm, PC.

Insurance companies can obtain surveillance of you. If they suspect that you do not have an injury or that you may be exaggerating the severity of the injury. Sometimes they will surveil someone if they’re desperate or the doctors have found the injuries to be severe. The insurance company will try to find anything they can use to get the doctor to change their opinion.

Should You Go Back To Work While Your Case Is Ongoing If You’re Able To? Could This Be Used Against You?

Going back to work cannot be used against you. If your doctor says that you can go back to work, whether you’re able to perform full duties or work with employer approved restrictions, you have to go back. If you go back to work and it is making your condition worse, you can have your ability to work reassessed by your doctor. Once you go back to work, the insurance company will no longer pay you temporary disability benefits. If your claim has been denied, you’re not receiving any benefits from the insurance company, and you’re unable to work at your current job, you can work somewhere else as long as you stay within the work restrictions your doctor has provided.

How Will Insurance Companies Attempt To Use Delay Tactics To Draw Out A Workers’ Comp Claim Process?

Insurance companies can draw out a workers’ comp claim process by delaying the authorization of treatments requested by a doctor. When a claim is clearly work-related, insurance companies can delay the process by prolonging the investigation of an injury. Insurance companies are required to investigate your injury. They have 90 days to decide whether to accept or deny your claim. However, the most significant way that your claim can be delayed is by not getting the medical treatment authorized in a timely manner. If you go to an industrial clinic that your employer sends you to, they may delay requesting a treatment you need. For instance, they may wait four or five months to request an MRI that should have been requested after seeing the doctor for one month.

How Are The Workers’ Comp Benefits Calculated In California?

In California, you’re entitled to two-thirds of your average weekly salary for temporary disability payments when a doctor takes you out of work or gives you work restrictions your employer cannot accommodate. To calculate your average weekly salary, they look at the amount you made over the last year of employment before your injury. If you worked less than a year the previous year, they’ll look at what you made during the actual time that you worked. Temporary disability benefits are currently capped at $1,383 per week.

Permanent disability benefits, which is the money you receive for your injury, is determined by either your treating doctor’s examination or neutral doctor’s examination. Based on the examination, they will give you a percentage for each of your work-related injuries and medical conditions based on guidelines they have to follow. Your attorney would then take the percentage the doctors give and use a mathematical formula to get the final percentage for all your work-related injuries and medical conditions. The formula takes into account the type of work you did before being injured and your age. The final percentage determines the number of weeks of disability payments you will receive for all of your injuries and work-related medical conditions. This final percentage is then multiplied by your weekly permanent disability rate, which will be between $160 and $290.

You will also receive an educational voucher if you are unable to return to work with your employer or your employer is unable to offer a modified job you can perform. The educational voucher can be used to be trained in a new profession. There are also other benefits you receive to assist you with being able to take classes.

For more information on Workers’ Compensation Cases In California, a free case evaluation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (866) 967-8691 today.

Diallo Scott

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