Medical care for an injured employee can be complicated. When the injured employee is represented by an attorney, the plaintiff’s attorney often tries to make the seriousness of the injury to appear to be greater than it actually is. Defense attorneys who have handled many similar claims often have a fairly good understanding of the medical terminology and what is meant by various medical reports and are not fooled by the plaintiff attorney overstating the nature and extent of the injury.
Defense Attorney & Doctor Need Conference in Complex Cases
However, there are situations where the injury to the employee is unique, and the seriousness and/or complexity of the injury is not fully understood by either the work comp claims adjuster or by the defense attorney. It is in situations of this nature that the need for a conference between the defense attorney and the doctor is needed. These medical-legal conferences are normally held during the discovery phase of a work comp claim in litigation, but can be held at any time.
Med-legal conferences can occur by telephone, but more often the defense attorney will reserve an appointment with the medical provider to review and discuss the medical treatment an injured employee is incurring. The med-legal conference allows the defense attorney to better understand the injured employee’s medical care. The defense attorney will have the opportunity to ask questions about the medical reports and will hence be able to decipher and understand the medical reports better.
Understand Issues, Make Negotiation Easier
The med-legal conference puts the nature of the injury, the extent of the injury and the future medical treatment needed into plain English that the defense attorney will be able to understand and to convey, if necessary, at a Board hearing or in a full-blown trial. This makes the negotiation of any settlement on the work comp claim more accurate and feasible.
The med-legal conference also will assist the defense attorney to understand the chronological sequence of the injury, the medical treatment and the recovery. The defense attorney will also better understand the reasonableness of the previously provided care and the reasonableness of the proposed future medical care.
Real Claim Example
To better understand the use of a med-legal conference, consider the following real claim.
The employee was removing a motor from a dump truck. The employee fastened a chain around it and lifted it with a fork of the forklift (no safety program at this employer!). When the forklift moved, the motor dangling on a chain, swung around and struck the employee in the top of the back, breaking the right clavicle with a compound fracture.
After four months of treatment, the medical provider placed the employee at MMI. The work comp adjuster paid the PPD rating and thought the claim was done. Two months later the claimant calls the doctor and is in severe pain. The doctor does an x-ray and the clavicle, which had been healed in the prior x-ray before the employee was placed at MMI had developed a non-union along the fracture lines. The plaintiff attorney filed for a “worsening of condition” with a request for additional medical treatment, additional temporary total disability and was pursuing a higher PPD rating.
The defense attorney met with the doctor following the resumption of medical care to discuss the cause of the non-union and how it could have developed after the employee was released from care. The doctor explained that within a reasonable degree of medical certainty the failure of the previous union of the bones had to be caused by the employee suffering an aggravation at his new employer. The doctor explained there was diagnostic evidence of an aggravation. The aggravation broke the chain of causation resulting in the employer at the time of the initial injury no longer being responsible for the claimant’s medical condition.
Cost of Savings Can Far Outweigh Cost of Conference
The cost of a med-legal conference is the cost of the doctor’s time and the cost of the defense attorney’s time. The med-legal conference will often answer the questions the defense attorney has in regards to the medical treatment and the status of the injured employee, eliminating the need for a formal deposition and the associated cost.
It is often worthwhile to pay for the time the doctor and the defense lawyer spend reviewing the medical care, the causes of medical issues and the proper resolution of the medical issues. Med-legal conferences should be considered any time the medical issues are complex and the understanding of the employee’s medical condition is not clear.
Author Michael Stack, Principal, COMPClub, Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their work comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and founder of COMPClub, an exclusive member training program on workers compensation cost containment best practices. Through these platforms he is in the trenches on a monthly basis working together with clients to implement and define best practices, which allows him to continuously be at the forefront of innovation and thought leadership in workers’ compensation cost containment. Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.
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