Under Georgia’s workers’ compensation law, your employer gets to direct where you get medical care if your employer provides you with a valid “posted panel of physicians.” Not surprisingly, posted panel doctors sometimes bring a pro-employer bias to their treatment of you. I regularly see – and you have no doubt heard stories about – cases in which a seriously injured man or woman is given a regular duty return to work, only to end up in surgery a few weeks later.
In 1990, the Georgia legislature gave injured workers an important new right, the “claimant’s IME (independent medical exam). Under this law, an injured worker can request an independent medical examination with a doctor of his choosing, paid for by the employer’s insurance company.
When properly used as part of a effective claim strategy, your claimant’s IME can be used to:
- refute the unfair and biased claim of industrial clinic doctors
- contest a premature return to work demand by the insurance adjuster
- support a request for a change in authorized treating physician
- support a reasonable settlement demand
However, as important and valuable as your claimant’s IME rights may be, this right is not open ended and it can be wasted if not used properly. [Read more…] about Am I Entitled to More than One Independent Medical Exam if I have Multiple Work Injuries?