Legal Question in Workers Comp in California

STOP CONTACTING the employer, and write to BOTH the collection agency and the WORKERS COMP INSURANCE ADJUSTER.

Write that if the Insurer fails to provide evidence of payment to the TREATMENT PROVIDER (not the collection agency but the actual provider of the study or the treatment) within 20 days, you'll be filing a "Declaration of Readiness To Proceed" for an Expedited hearing to get the bill resolved.

In that same letter, note that if evidence of payment per the California Labor Code is provided to the Collection Agency, you will submit the evidence of full payment TO THE LOS ANGELES DISTRICT ATTORNEY with a request for prosecution for workers' comp fraud by the Collection Agency.

A Collection Agency attempting to collect a workers comp payment that has already been received is committing criminal fraud.

YOU MUST PUT THIS in writing...telephone calls get ignored. Letters without deadlines get ignored.

You never take the employer to court, you only take the Workers Comp Insurance company to the Workers Compensation Appeals Board. Maybe a 'Status Conference' at the WCAB would result in a judge ordering the Insurer to pay the collection agency the balance of the bill...

....but if the collection agency doesn't file special notices to 'stand in the shoes' of the treatment provider, the judge will just order payment to the original treatment provider and the collection agency will just keep 'dinging' your credit.