Greetings, by special request, this tip will address Florida-based employee’s who are injured while working out of the state or country (due to the hurricanes or any reason). In general, if it is simply a business trip, the claimant would be considered a traveling employee and in most instances the entire trip is covered under […]
Greetings, On Monday, the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), proposed a statewide premium decrease of 9.6% for 2018 (rates would be effective 1/1/2018). The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation now has to review the filing and there will be a public hearing in October. The rationale for the premium decrease is that claim frequency […]
Greetings, I am working on a new CEU outline called “Whoops I did it again! Common Mistakes in Litigation”. One of the common mistakes I am seeing is equivocal responses to PFB’s that don’t really say yes or no as to whether the benefit will be provided. A “maybe” type answer is not agreeing to […]
Greetings, earlier this week the 1st DCA heard oral arguments in a case involving MCC and the 120 day rule. The case is Williams v. Tampa Electric, OJCC # 15-029577, and we do not have a decision yet. The issue in the case is one that comes up often, so I wanted to address it. […]
Greetings, last week the 1st DCA expanded the misrepresentation “fraud” defense in Foods v. Howard (1D16-1789). (Click Here) In this case, there was no dispute that the claimant was involved in an accident while operating a front-end loader. However he did not seek any medical attention until after he had been terminated , two months […]
Greetings, Often, the initial PFB filed in a claim seeks payment of hospital-related bills along with other claims. And many times, we don’t have the records yet from that treatment to know if it was in fact related to our accident. The traditional PFB response during the guideline-fee era had always been something to the […]
Greetings, One of the items listed in the White House’s proposed 2018 Federal budget (beginning 10/1/17) is to put an end to our ability in Florida to offset WC against Social Security Disability. This has not passed yet, it is in the proposed budget which still has to work its way through Congress. Right now, […]
Greetings, The Florida Legislative session ended last night, and the House and Senate could not agree on a few key terms. Unless a special session is called, the law in effect now will remain in force until at least the 2018 session. Both the House and Senate bills had some good fixes for us; making […]
Greetings, the Florida Supreme Court has set a date for Oral Arguments in Stahl, April 6, 2016. The claimant’s counsel is arguing that the 2003 statutory changes went too far in reducing benefits and workers have been deprived of rights because they are blocked from pursuing claims in civil court, outside of WC. Still no […]
I was at the JCC’s office yesterday and one of the Orlando Judges was telling me about a case of his that was just heard before the 1st DCA regarding evaluations and diagnostic testing recommended by the treater. This case involved a shoulder injury, and then subsequently, a referral for an MRI of the neck […]