Since the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania set the PA workers’ compensation system abuzz in the Protz case by striking the entire Impairment Rating Evaluation (IRE) section from the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act (Act), we have waited to see some appellate decision interpreting Protz. The Commonwealth Court of PA has now…
“Notice” of a Pennsylvania work injury is an issue which we have previously addressed in this blog. Essentially, an injury must be reported to the employer within 21 days to have benefits date back to the first day, and within 120 days of the injury to have an entitlement to…
Whether an employee hurt during the commute to work is covered by the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act (Act) is always a difficult analysis, and one we often encounter here. Each case depends on the specific facts involved. While most employees (those who are “stationary” employees) are not covered for the…
We have lamented the severe and draconian limits on the ability to challenge Utilization Reviews (URs) on this blog before. We have seen a case where a healthcare provider sent a treatment summary and talked with the reviewer, and a case where records were actually submitted by the provider, but…
Several years ago, we were excited to tell everyone about the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decision in Phoenixville Hospital v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Shoap). It was this case that made clear workers’ compensation insurance carriers in PA could not simply use a classified “help wanted” ad to reduce every…
Among the benefits available under the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act (Act), are “fatal claim” benefits. Since these are only relevant for work accidents which involve the death of a worker, these are not things we like to often see. Unfortunately, sometimes these things do happen, and they are cases which…
Sometimes odd facts in a Pennsylvania workers’ compensation case make for an odd decision. Yet, even then, we can often find something of use in that decision. Seeing how appellate courts approach different situations helps us understand how that may translate to other fact patterns and enable us to better…
What is “medical treatment”? Though most folks know that medical treatment for a work injury is covered under the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act (Act), even the courts seem confused as to what constitutes “medical treatment.” In some ways, this issue was recently clarified by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. In…
One of the tools in the arsenal of the workers’ compensation insurance carrier in Pennsylvania, in their fight to take away benefits from injured workers, is the “Labor Market Survey” (LMS), also known as an “Earning Power Assessment” (EPA). Once an injured worker in PA has shown an entitlement to…
Though the phrase “scope and course of employment” does not appear anywhere in the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, this is a frequent issue involved with appellate cases. After all, a work injury is only compensable if one was performing his or her job at the time of the injury. This…