Steve Miller ran two articles today in the Nevada Journal on the proposed legislation that would allow injured workers greater rights to choose their treating physicians. Let's hope that Nevada's lawmakers read them and pay particular attention to how ineffective DIR is with regard to looking out for the interests of injured workers as we try to weather the storm during this legislative session. Meanwhile, the self-insured employers didn't fare as well as they expected on AB 229 during the Assembly's Committee on Commerce and Labor open hearing on March 25, 2015, with this nasty piece...

Effective 2/1/15 through 1/31/16, the cost of a permanent partial disability evaluation on a Nevada workers' compensation claim is $754.62. That is for two body parts. The cervical spine is considered one body part, the thoracic spine another body part, and the lumbar spine would be a separate body part. For each additional body part after two, the rating doctor may charge an additional $252.02. That means that if an injured worker disagrees with the first rating obtained by the insurer on a claim involving three body parts, the injured worker will have to pay $1006.64 to obtain a...

Click on this website to find out who your representatives are in state government so that you can voice your opinion on this important issue: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Research/Library/FAQ/WhichLegislatorRepresents.html?CFID=23920731&CFTOKEN=bf710a33b7c9b575-B1993405-F17A-47AD-CBA1A41D2BF543E2

  The Nevada legislature meets only once every other year, and this year doesn't look good for the changes that could gut benefits for Nevada's injured workers. The amendment so many of us committed work comp attorneys hoped would get out of the senate committee on commerce and labor and to the legislature for a vote on allowing workers to choose their own doctors might be dead already. Meanwhile, big business employers and insurers are having a field day trying to take advantage of a a Republican majority assembly and a Republican majority senate to try to pass so-called reforms...

I asked Laurie Clemens, director of the Professional Institute of Technology & Accounting (PITA) here in Las Vegas, what keyboard options she has tried when retraining injured workers with hand or arm injuries that make typing difficult. While there are medical differences of opinion as to whether typing can cause carpal tunnel syndrome, there is no question that typing on a regular keyboard can aggravate the condition. Almost all occupations now require some input on a computer and typing, so workers with any kind of hand injury may need a special keyboard. Often times, employers...

Neurosurgeon Randal Peoples, M.D. spoke to a dozen claimants' attorneys and interested health care providers recently about his philosophy in treating spinal injuries. He acknowledged that he has a reputation for being conservative about recommending surgery and stated that being a good surgeon is knowing when not to operate. Dr. Peoples emphasized that the patient's history about an injury is the most important information to him in diagnosing a spinal injury. About one third of the population has a disc herniation on a MRI, but most don't know it and don't have pain or...

If you work for an employer who employs more than 50 employees and you have worked sufficient hours to qualify for FMLA time (29 U.S.C.2601), you may want to ask that any time you are off work for your work injury be designated as FMLA time, particularly if you expect to be released full duty before your full 12 weeks of FMLA time is up. Many employers require that any time off for a work injury be designated as FMLA time so as to reduce your 12 weeks of FMLA. A recent 9th Circuit case (Escriba v. Foster Poultry Farms) appears to question that, but the Department of Labor website still...