Best Personal Injury Lawyers in Upland, CA

Last week the DWC convened a virtual stakeholders’ meeting to discuss problems with Medical Provider Networks (“MP Ns”) in California’s Workers Compensation system. Doctors, claims administrators, employer representatives, managed care networks, a workers’ compensation judge, and the California Applicants’ Attorneys Association, among others were there. Here are some scary truths about MP Ns. • Obtaining authorization to see a treater in the MPN can be delayed by months, when written authorization is required even though the network of doctors is “managed” and chosen by the employer. • A workers comp judge who spoke at the meeting reported that over 40% of the cases set on his calendar are on “failure to authorize” even though the injury is not disputed. • Determining the correct MPN from which an injured worker can receive treatment can be impossible. Often an injured worker receives a voluminous amount of correspondence from the carriers without any indication of which MPN is applicable. • There is no easily accessible database of carriers and their corresponding MPN links available on the DWC website. • Many MPN lists contain doctors who are deceased, or do not currently treat/have never treated workers compensation patients, or are unavailable for a myriad of reasons. Auditing requirements are not enforced to clean up these non-functioning MPN lists.