Host:
Knowing your rights when it comes to Workers’ Compensation is crucial for your case. And Katherine Stone from Injury Florida Law is back with what you need to know about your treatment rights, which there are so many questions that I always come up with listening to you talk about Workers’ Comp treatment.
Katherine Stone:
So this one kind of came up when I was thinking about topics in the sense of I’ve had clients that have had their case going for quite a while. And they would come in and I would be like, “Okay. Well, where are we at?” That’s my first question with someone who has an older claim is, “Where are we at?” And oftentimes, they’ll come in and say, “Well, I have this referral from three months ago that I was supposed to have X, Y, and Z done. And I still haven’t gotten it done.” Okay. So I explain that worker’s comp is a self-executing statute, so it should… They should do, go along as they please without really having to do anything.
Katherine Stone:
But unfortunately, that’s why attorneys need to get involved. So what I can tell these people is when they come in and I can say, “Okay. Well, I take that referral.” I then… Although there’s no grievance procedures in place anymore, we still have to do a good faith attempt with the carrier saying, “Hey, we have this referral. Here is our good faith attempt to resolve this matter prior to filing a petition for benefits with the judge of compensation claims.” There’s no specific amount of time that we have to give them to qualify for that good faith, but we still have to do that because… And then if we still don’t hear back, then I file what’s called a petition for benefits with the judge of compensation claims. And they have 30 days to respond to that petition.
Katherine Stone:
So what I tell clients is number one, I can put them on a time clock to respond. I can put them on a time clock that they have to either decide to provide the provision or not provide the provision versus so that client waiting three months and not having heard anything. That wouldn’t happen if I was involved. In other words, I would have already had that issue resolved. So what I tell clients is it’s so important when you get that referral, you need to call my office, you need to text a copy of that referral, or you can email, or you can fax, however you can get it to us so that we can go ahead, do our good faith request. They don’t comply with the good faith request, then we file a petition for benefits. And it’s about the timeliness issue because a lot of clients, as we all do in everyday life, we want everything yesterday.
Host:
Yeah.
Katherine Stone:
And so I have to tell clients, “Look, I can do things to speed this along, but you’re looking at about 30 to 40 days before they officially have to respond to the request.”
Host:
And that is again, after waiting X amount of time before the actual clock started ticking because they didn’t have legal.
Katherine Stone:
Unfortunately, what can happen, and this just happened the other day, is a referral for a specific kind of test had expired.
Host:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Katherine Stone:
And so then there was an issue of we couldn’t get the person back into the doctor in time. So then there’s another delay. And so it’s just always best to have somebody on your side that knows and can walk you through so that you don’t have these month-long delays.
Host:
And I know just from the experience in working with you, time is of the essence.
Katherine Stone:
Time is of the essence.
Host:
There are so many deadlines. This is just one example of the many deadlines you have to deal with in a Workers’ Comp case, right?
Katherine Stone:
Yes. You would… My calendar is insane.
Host:
I cannot imagine.
Katherine Stone:
And we do reminders.
Host:
I cannot imagine your reminders. But this is the time in a segment when we remind viewers that they can get in touch with you if they have any legal questions, especially Workers’ Comp. There’s the information you see on the screen so you can reach out and talk with Katherine and her team today.
INJURY FLORIDA LAW FIRM, P.A.
Call Toll-Free or Text 1-833-LAW-STONE
Injuryfloridalawfirm.com