Workers Comp Zone

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.

May 11, 2021

STATEWIDE MPN MORPHS INTO MPN STUDY

The concept of a statewide MPN (Medical Provider Network) is dead for the foreseeable future. The California Medical Provider Network (CAMPN) was originally proposed under Assembly Bill 1465, sponsored by California Assembly members Eloise Reyes and Lorena Gonzalez. The proposal would have required the California Division of Workers’ Compensation to build out a statewide physician […]


April 29, 2021

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’

Workers have won a big victory in the Federal courts, as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that AB-5 can be enforced against the California trucking industry, and is not “pre-empted” by a Federal law known as the Federal Aviation Authorization Act of 1994. The California Trucking Association and two independent owner-operators had […]


March 29, 2021

TALES FROM A WORKING MAN’S SHRINK

Readers may be interested to note a recently published book, “Wounded Workers: Tales from a Working Man’s Shrink”. It’s authored by long-time Bay Area QME/AME Dr. Bob Larsen. Larsen, based out of San Francisco for much of his career, has been a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF and is a past president of the […]


March 17, 2021

A PANDEMIC YEAR

We’re a year into the pandemic now. It’s been a time of stress and challenges, and they are not over. The chaos has been medical, financial, cultural, spiritual, educational. Members of some worker groups and ethnic/racial groups have been hit particularly hard.  California’s workers and the workers’ comp community are still responding to the challenge, […]


March 10, 2021

RETHINKING THE KITCHEN SINK STRATEGY

Will the newly unveiled amended Medical-Legal Fee Schedule regulations result in a change in California workers’ comp culture? The proposed regs, likely to be officially adopted for use in April 2021, contain measures that have the potential to change how cases are often handled. The new California Medical-Legal Fee schedule (we’ll call it the MLFS) […]


February 26, 2021

A COPY SERVICE FEE UPDATE?

An update to the California workers’ compensation copy service fee schedule has been under DWC consideration for several years. Copy service fees have long been a bone of contention in the system. A 2013 study of copy service fees prepared by the Berkeley Research group for the California Department of Industrial Relations (see link below) […]


February 4, 2021

PROP 22 CHALLENGE FAILS

The California Supreme Court has declined to block implementation of Prop 22, the November 2020 voter-passed initiative which designates app-based drivers as independent contractors under a scheme set up by the initiative. The challenge to the initiative was filed on January 12, 2021 with the California Supreme Court. Filing the challenge were the SEIU (Service […]