[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=””]I [/fusion_dropcap]frequently tell my clients, in explaining bad behavior by insurance companies, that insurance companies exist to take in premiums and not to pay out benefits. Self-insured employers behave the same way.
Here is a link documenting the most extreme behavior I have seen by any employer.
How Tesla and its doctor made sure injured employees didn’t get workers’ comp
Inside a medical clinic not far from Tesla’s electric car factory, Yvette Bonnet started noting a troubling pattern. The automaker’s workers’ compensation manager would pressure her boss, Dr. Basil Besh, to make sure Tesla wasn’t on the hook for certain injured workers. READ MORE…
The versions of this behavior (albeit much less egregious) occur in the Oregon workers’ compensation system every day. Insurance companies hire doctors they know are more willing to say that someone doesn’t have a work-related condition, or that the work-related condition is better than the workers’ doctors. Insurance companies push to get people released to light or modified duty and then to full duty, often times before they’re really ready. If the worker refuses to go to work, the employer can terminate them and avoid paying a great many workers’ comp benefits. The employer can avoid paying permanent disability and vocational assistance benefits, not because the worker is not entitled to them, but because of the type of behavior that you see Tesla engage in.
It is important to understand that the insurance company is never on the side of the injured worker. In order to have any degree of success in dealing with the insurance company, however, it is critical that the doctor be on the side of the injured worker. Knowing which doctor to go to (or sometimes, just which doctor to avoid) can make a large difference in the amount of benefits that the injured person can receive
