If your treating physician on your accepted workers' compensation claim in Nevada reports to your claims adjuster that you may have a ratable impairment, you should be scheduled for an impairment evaluation  30 days later.  This evaluation, also called a rating,  will be done by one of the 138 doctors and chiropractors who have been tested and authorized by the state agency, DIR, to perform ratings.  The purpose of the rating evaluation is to  determine your percentage of impairment so that a  permanent partial disability award can be...

Many injured workers with severe spinal cord injuries are reluctant to mention to their treating physician that they have had sexual dysfunction since their work accident in Nevada.  Males in particular are embarrassed to bring up this topic with their doctors.  Unless the doctor initiates the discussion and directly asks about any sexual  problems, the problem isn't noted in the dictated reporting, and isn't treated.  And if the problem is permanent, the injured worker isn't properly evaluated for impairment. It is very important that if...

 Each year the WCS Medical Unit of the Division of Industrial Relations (DIR) updates the Medical Fee Schedule that determines the fees for medical services, including impairment evaluations.  Effective February 1, 2012, the current 138 authorized rating doctors may charge $693.31 for up to two body parts.  $231.54  is chargeable for each  additional body part.  For example, an injured worker with an injury to his neck, his low back, and to his left shoulder has  three injured body parts. A rating exam of all three injured body...

The problem with the Internet articles I see on many sites that look like they provide good information for injured workers is that the content is not specific to Nevada workers' compensation law.  Each state has its own laws that determine work comp benefits. If information is not specific to Nevada law, then injured workers in Nevada will be misinformed.  Injured workers may think that they are getting state-specific information just because they click on a particular state.  However, despite the professional appearance of these websites, they rarely...

1. Going along with bad medical care You don't have to accept substandard medical care just because you were injured at work. It is hard to correct a botched surgery.  If you feel reluctant or have a gut feeling that the surgeon the insurer has assigned to you isn't very good or isn't listening to you, change doctors.  You have the absolute right within the first 90 days of your claim to change to a different doctor on the insurer's provider list.  And even after the first 90 days, you may still request a different doctor.  Make your request...

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2010, about a fifth of all  workplace fatalities in Nevada were caused by a worker falling. Almost every serious fall injury  I've handled in the Nevada work comp arena in the past fifteen years was caused  either by the employer's obvious  failure to follow safe work practices, or the employee's own unsafe actions.     Contrary to what most non-attorneys think, whose fault caused the injured worker to fall isn't  supposed to determine whether a...

Just before Thanksgiving, the Nevada Supreme Court published a turkey of a decision that robs injured workers of disability award money.  In Public Agency Compensation Trust v. Blake, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. 77 (2011), the court invalidated a long-standing  DIR regulation that addressed how rating doctors are to account for a prior PPD award for a re injured body part where the prior rating was done under a different edition of the AMA Guides to Evaluation of Permanent Impairment.   Nevada law currently requires that rating doctors use the 5th edition of...