A Partner at Boxer & Gerson LLP, Julius Young has practiced worker’s compensation law and social security disability law since 1979. He has represented thousands of individuals who have sustained life-changing injuries or illnesses while on the job. In every case, his goal is to secure the medical treatments his clients need.
A lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles challenging the Division of Workers’ Compensation policies and procedures for re-certifying QMEs (see link to the actual pleadings at the end of this post). What’s the beef? In the summer of 2016 I began to hear anecdotes that quite a few workers’ comp QMEs had received notices that […]
How should opioid tapering be done under California’s MTUS and the formulary regulations that are being developed? That was the subject of comments recently submitted by the California Applicants’ Attorneys Association pursuant to the 2nd 15-day comment period on the proposed formulary (see links at end of this post). Clearly the DWC is behind the […]
AB 570 is heading to the governor, where it faces a dubious future. The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, is a slimmed down effort to ban gender bias in California workers’ compensation. The concept is rather simple. Labor Code Section 4663 would be amended to add a provision that “No percentage of an […]
Governor Brown has now promoted WCAB Commissioner Katherine Zalewski to the slot of Chair of the California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The slot of WCAB Chairperson has been open for over a year following the departure of Ronnie Caplane. Frankly, it was surprising that the slot had been left open so long. A bit of […]
A bill to reform the $120 Million Return to Work Fund is dead for this year. The bill, AB 553 (carried by Tom Daly of Anaheim), will become a “two year bill”, meaning it may resurface next year. This week’s scheduled Senate Appropriations hearing on the bill was canceled. The bill was designed to address the […]
The WCIRB has now issued its 2017 report on the state of the California workers’ comp system (the report can be found at the bottom of this post). If you’re headed to a desert island and want to take along one resource for understanding California workers’ comp now, this is probably the best choice. As […]
In late June the WCAB issued a clarifying decision in Frances Stevens V. Outspoken Enterprises (State Compensation Insurance Fund) (link at end of this post). The decision reaffirms the WCAB’s determination that a former home health care guideline, the 2009 MTUS guideline on home health care, is void ab initio. SCIF filed a writ petition on 8/1/17: […]
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