A question I often get is, “How does Nevada workers’ compensation work?” As I have explained in a previous blog post, workers’ compensation is an exclusive remedy in Nevada to compensate employees that are injured in the course and scope of their employment. The steps to filing a claim require that there be a specific accident that caused an injury, the injury is timely reported to your employer (as soon as possible, but within 7 days), and that you timely filed a request for compensation by going to the doctor and completing a C-4 form (within 90 days of the injury). Once the C-4 form...

More changes from the Division of Industrial Relations just in for 2020! The Division of Industrial Relations (DIR) is a division within the State of Nevada Department of Business and Industry, which is responsible for overseeing workers’ compensation in Nevada. The DIR has been rolling out changes ever since the end of the 2019 Legislative Session and will likely continue through 2020.  The most recent changes published by the DIR include changes to the C-1 form (Notice of Injury or Occupational Disease, the C-3 form (Employer’s Report of Industrial Injury or Occupational Disease), and...

Workers’ compensation insurance is a requirement for all employers, with one or more employees. It is meant to protect employer’s from negligence lawsuits when an employee is hurt in the course and scope of employment, but also meant to give the injured worker a remedy and to provide medical and compensation benefits when they are hurt at work. Workers’ compensation insurance, however, doesn’t cover every injury just because it happened at work. Below are the top reasons a Nevada workers’ compensation claim gets denied. Course and Scope. To have a valid workers’ compensation claim,...

The deadline for appealing a Hearings or Appeals Officer’s decision is 30 days. This is a shorter time frame than the typical appeal deadline for determinations from the adjuster. Deadlines to appeal are quick, frequent, and jurisdictional in workers’ compensation. Jurisdictional in this sense means that if you fail to appeal a Hearing Officer or Appeals Officer’s Decision and Order within 30 days the next judge can dismiss the appeal.  All determinations made by the workers’ compensation insurance adjuster are appealable in Nevada. The timeline to appeal a determination is 70 days, unless...

One of the questions I receive from my clients is, “why do worker’s compensation attorneys appeal the initial claim acceptance letter and subsequent scope determinations?” This is a good question and often doesn’t make sense to injured workers’ when they are receiving the treatment they want or need. One of the reasons attorney’s appeal the initial claim acceptance letter is because the law requires the workers’ compensation insurance adjuster to accept or deny the claim within 30 days. This means that adjusters are issuing an acceptance letter often based off the C-4 form and the...

When you are injured at work, your treating physician gives you a physician’s progress report (PPR) or a work activity report. These reports inform you, your workers’ compensation adjuster, and your employer of any work restrictions you may have. The PPR will guide your light duty job offer. On the PPR there is a place towards the bottom of the page where the workers’ compensation doctor states whether you are released to “full duty/no restrictions,” “Temporarily Totally Disabled,” or “released to restricted/modified duty.” Temporarily totally disabled means that the doctor determined...

Effective January 1, 2020, the mileage reimbursement decreased for 2020. The rate for workers compensation related travel has been decreased from 58 cents per mile to 57.5 cents per mile. The Division of Industrial Relations publishes the change at the beginning of every year. This years change was announced on January 3, 2020, and can be seen here. Injured workers are eligible for mileage allowance under NAC 616C.150. Mileage is eligible for reimbursement if the injured worker is  (1) traveling to a doctor’s appointment related to his or her workers compensation claim (this includes...