Injured workers ask better questions than the system gives them answers to.
I have spent more than seventeen years in California’s workers’ compensation system, first defending insurance carriers and now representing injured workers. These pages take the questions I hear most often and answer them the way I would answer them for a client, in plain English, with the deadlines that actually matter.
The Pages
- MRI or Treatment Denied. Why four doctors can request the same MRI and get denied four times, why that is usually a documentation problem rather than an accusation, and the appeal windows that close in as little as 10 days.
- Future Medical. What a Compromise and Release actually closes, why a recommended surgery changes the entire calculation, and whether you can reopen a settlement later.
A Word About Legal Information Online
Be careful with three things when you research your own claim.
State law. Workers’ compensation is a state system. Confident advice from someone in another state can be completely wrong here.
Settlement numbers. Someone else’s outcome tells you almost nothing about yours, because age, occupation, apportionment, disputed body parts, and whether future medical is closing all move the number enormously.
Deadlines. This is the one that actually destroys cases. Ten days to strike a QME panel. Ten days for a drug-only IMR appeal. Thirty days for a standard IMR. One year to file your application.
If something on these pages sounds like your situation, do not rely on a webpage, mine included. General information is not advice about your case.
Ask Me Directly
Consultations are free, applicant’s attorneys work on contingency at a fee set by statute and approved by a judge, and there is no fee unless we recover for you. Contact my office.
Ryan D. Kayrell, PC represents injured workers throughout California from Irvine, Orange County. These pages are general information about California workers’ compensation law, not legal advice for any particular situation, and reading them does not create an attorney-client relationship.