The reason lawmakers and regulators create rules that seem onerous and ponderous to the vast majority of us is because there are "outliers" that ruin it for everyone else because of indescribably selfish behavior.
There's always someone taking a new angle to take advantage of the liberal rules of workers' compensation for their own profit regardless of the social consequences. This seems particularly acute in California, but nevertheless occurs in other jurisdictions too. Recently posted in the WorkCompCentral Forums was an inquiry as to whether anyone else in the community is starting to see bills for unsolicited services related to genetic testing for drug addition predisposition. The author of the post, an attorney for the employer/carrier, says that the case in question had been settled. In preparing the settlement documents a review of California's Electronic Adjudication Management System database was conducted to identify all parties. Nearly all lien claims had been settled, but one remained stubbornly immovable (and I'm not even clear that the parties were ever properly served and/or noticed of this particular vendor until the end of the case). For this one particular lien the claim file notes apparently show a request for billing and report after discovery of the vendor in the EAMS search. The carrier got fax copies of a bill and report with a demand for payment. The bill was for $3,626.00 for the genetic testing. According to the post, the initial report, based on an... |
