Most Recent Articles
Jul 6, 2021
IBR Hall of Shame: Sedgwick Sets New Standard of Noncompliance
Sedgwick failed to comply with an Independent Bill Review (IBR) ruling for almost four months. Worse, the payor’s brazenness is likely to go unpenalized by the state.T...
Jul 12, 2021
Sedgwick Denies Second Review Appeals as "Duplicates"
Sedgwick has a Second Review problem.On too many occasions, Sedgwick incorrectly denies providers’ Second Review appeals as “duplicate submissions” of the original bil...
Jul 15, 2021
Sedgwick Violates LACoFD Employer Contract, IBR Drops Ball
A physician agreed to serve as Independent Medical Examiner (IME) for the Labor Management Committee (LMC) representing the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) and Lo...
Aug 23, 2021
ESIS Fails to Pay IBR Fee on Behalf of ABM Industries
Ask yourself — what happens if you’re a year late paying a bill?Your credit score tanks? Your car is repossessed? Your home foreclosed on? In most walks of life...
Sep 15, 2021
SCIF Hacks IBR by Switching (Incorrect) Denial Reason
There’s a serious inequity in the appeals process by which California workers’ comp providers can dispute incorrect reimbursement for authorized treatment. State Compensation...
Sep 22, 2021
Liberty Mutual Stiffs QME - Attorneys Required
Hello California Workers’ Comp Attorneys, Medical-Legal physicians in this state need your help. Payers like Liberty Mutual have found a way to skirt the Independent ...
Nov 17, 2021
Lien Chaos Returns: DWC Rules for Anthem (Part III)
California’s Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) has a duplicity problem. In the third chapter of our series on The Zenith and Anthem Blue Cross, we discover that ...
Dec 6, 2021
JT2 Plays IBR Chicken (and Wins)
As we often point out, it can seem as if payers play a twisted game of IBR Chicken with doctors, reflexively denying bills and Second Review appeals only to change their mind...
Jan 10, 2022
Intact Insurance Plays (Double) IBR Chicken
Welcome to another round of IBR Chicken! The rules are simple. To avoid reimbursing a doctor for authorized workers’ comp services, a California claims administrator m...
Jan 11, 2022
IBR Chicken: SCIF Blinks Too Late
You win some, you lose some. That’s the lesson the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) must take from the latest round of California workers’ comp claims administ...
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Feb 8, 2022
CA DWC Rigs IBR and Helps SCIF
A doctor treated a California injured worker. Subsequently, in an apparent attempt to avoid paying for the treatment, the State Compensation Insurance Fund deni...
Mar 22, 2022
PPO: No Provider Recourse for Unnamed Discounts
In California workers’ comp, the appeals process for disputing improper Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) reductions has a serious flaw.Routinely, Explanations of ...