How Large A Portion?

Ouch! You have just suffered an injury while at work, and therefore may file a workers’ compensation claim.  You are in your mid-40’s and the injury is to your back.  You had noticed your back hurting a bit before the injury (probably from just getting older) but it was nowhere near the pain that you are now experiencing since the work injury.  Not to mention you had that old embarrassing lower back injury that you suffered during a picnic whiffleball game a few months ago, which you have since pretty much fully recovered from.  But what should these other aches and pains have to do with your new injury?  After all, if it wasn’t for the new work injury, you would still be able to work!

That is absolutely true.  However, when it comes time to determine the amount of Permanent Disability associated with your back injury, the doctor will attempt to determine just that:  how much of the disability was caused by the work injury and not other contributing factors.  This is called apportionment in workers’ compensation.

The doctor will attempt to apportion your Permanent Disability.  Using the example above, the doctor could determine that 80% of your disability is a result of your work injury, while 10% is due to “degenerative changes” (the back pain you noticed before) and 10% to your whiffleball-related injury.  This is when you say, “But that isn’t fair!  If it wasn’t for the work injury I wouldn’t have any noticeable disability!”  You’re right, but that is just the way the law and the labor code are written at the moment, and we’re stuck with it.

Insurance companies are also beginning to try to apportion an injured worker’s inability to get back to work after the injury to other factors besides the injury itself.  Again, you will correctly shout from the rooftop that “but if it wasn’t for my work injury I would still have my job!”  However, insurance companies are increasingly making the argument that not all of someone’s inability to find a job is related to the work injury.  They put forward that the economic climate is even preventing healthy people from finding work, that the injured worker may not be looking at all available jobs, that the job the injured worker was employed in is now more and more rare for anyone who is looking for work, injured or not.  Simply put, they are looking for other things to blame your inability to find a job on than your work-related injury.

Rodman J Martin

On Friday, a study was relaeased that medical costs have been on the rise by at least 9% since 2007.  The reforms in 2002 ansd 2004 were intended to decrease the amount of money spent on workers’ compensation claims including medical expenses and permanent disability settlement amounts.  Although these costs remained low for the first few years, there has been a jump specifically in medical costs believed to be caused by hospital services.

https://www.workcompcentral.com/1/news/news_print.htm?token=CE606B93C40AD889C9ED4173E5AC7040B148687E6B23C00CF64E61CB40004553&state=CA&id=fc1dab8efacd558723c09d92b14c1bfag