Legal Question in Workers Comp in California

You need to do med-legal such as AME or QME in psychiatry to substantiate tour claim. To get maximum settlement you need to retain an experienced attorney. Since there may be issues such as life pension and etc that may effect your case. Feel free to call us at 213.388.7070 for a free consultation.

FIRST you must amend the Claim form to include an INjury to Psyche.

Unless and until you put in writing you are pursuing a psychiatric injury claim, the adjuster is supposed to deny all requests to see any psychiatrics or psychologists.

ALSO: if you've filed the Application for Adjudication of Claim -- "The App" in comp lingo -- the App needs to be amended to include an Psychiatric INjury...AND FAST.

A new law went in this year taking effect jan 1... just a few days... seems it bars psychiatric claims...I haven't studied it a lot, but I suspect Psych claims already filed are considered and the one filed after Jan 1 are excluded, SO HURRY.

SHOULD YOU ASK FOR A PSYCH CONSULT? Yes, the Primary Treating PHysician should issue an immediate "Request for Authorization" in a PR-2 or Supplement REport, and you and the treater should pick a Psychiatrist from the insurer's Medical Provider Network who isn't a jerk 'in bed' with the insurance company.

YOu pick the wrong psych from the MPN, and he'll write 51% of your complaints are non-industrial and that wipes out the psych recovery. SO PICK VERY, VERY CAREFULLY.

You pick a doctor outside the MPN, and the report is inadmissible.

IF you have a dad dying of cancer and a daughter in jail and a son in Iraq and a husband with a sex-change operation and a kid failing in school...you won't do well in a psych claim in comp..

I had a client who was presured into sex with her boss to pass probation but then got cancer.... the psych found that because 51% of her depression and anxiety were NOT caused by her affair with the boss but instead were worries from facing death from cancer, the psych claim was not compensable.

So if you have any personal stressors that could account the anxiety and depression, you might elect to skip pursuing psychiatric injury benefits.

AND if you are trying to get 'security clearance' AND YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO HAVE A PSYCHIATRIC DISABILITY on a medical record, you may choose to skip the psychiatric injury claim.

But it you're not a NASA Engineer and you're not going to be Brinks Truck driver, you should go for it.