Legal Question in Workers Comp in California

Re: Settling future medical care

Assuming you are speaking about a Workers' Compensation injury [but also true for any litigation], there never is an obligation for any party to settle the claim. Settlements are agreed to resolutions and can not be forced upon someone who does not want to agree. W.C. are always happy to settle cases, so unless you work for an employer with budget problems [such as the CHP] they in general will be happy to settle with you. But they will pay you very little for settling future medical care, so why do it.

Unless you just hate the system and do not want to be reminded of it, do not settle future medical care unless they offer you a significant amount of money and you are sure that you have coverage for any future problems with your injury that might come up. If it was a back injury, and in a few months you have more back pain, that employer's WC carrier will say it was from the old injury and deny you any benefits and you will then have to prove a work aggravation or that it was a new injury.

I handled the defense of WC cases for some 5 years and never understood, except in a few cases, why the injured employee's attorney agree to settle the medical care claim [aside from wanting to settle the entire case and move on to the next one].

As to getting the carrier to respond, if it has been more than 2-3 weeks, call the adjuster up directly and find out what is happening; if they will not speak to you, go over their head to the supervisor telling that person that you realize the adjuster has a large number of files but could you get someone to look at yours so that the matter can be resolved and they can close their file too.