California Workers' Compensation Reform: A Decade Overdue

It’s been ten years since the last major reform in the California Workers’ Compensation system. Despite the many difficulties in navigating the system, the legislature does not seem motivated to do much of anything to address the many problems in moving injured workers through the system and ensuring that they get the benefits they are entitled to.

If we were asked — and we believe if you asked most attorneys practicing in this system — what the most pressing need for reform is, it would be the need for the receipt of timely and adequate medical treatment. Time and time again, we attorneys and our support staff spend countless hours virtually every day combing through MPN lists for physicians who will actually agree to see injured workers or fighting to obtain treatment for our clients, which was denied by faceless utilization review physicians who have never actually seen or examined our clients.

The end result of this nightmare is that the injured worker — especially those who are not represented by attorneys fighting for their rights — does whatever they can to extricate themselves from the system and then go to their group health physician to finally get the treatment they need.

Thus, while it is true that Workers’ Compensation treatment costs are going down, the burden of treating the injured worker is simply being transferred to another system. My hope is the legislature will wake up and make the necessary changes that enable an injured worker to obtain timely and necessary medical treatment to optimize a speedy recovery and allow the worker to return to work — which is in everyone’s best interest.

If you’re an individual who has been injured on the job and you need advice or help navigating the increasingly difficult California Workers’ Compensation system, call Baziak and Steevens for a free consultation.