Where Do Injured Workers Go for Treatment?

Saturday, August 25, 2007 | 2

By Julius Young

Chico, Calif. What comes to mind?

Bucolic small Northeastern California town? After all, the town of Paradise is just down the road. Or maybe you recall seeing that the California State University, Chico campus has been a perennial contender for one of the nation's top "party schools?"

But Chico also has a regional medical center, Enloe Hospital. From there comes a cautionary tale about the effect of the 2004 Senate Bill 899 comp reforms on medical treatment. You can read Vince Abatte's piece about this from the Chico News and Review.

Injured workers from many small communities in Northeastern California have sought treatment for chronic pain at Enloe Hospital's Occupational Health Clinic. With the departure of the chronic pain specialist who staffed those cases, the hospital's clinic has no one to treat chronic pain cases. And the prospects for recruiting such a physician appear bleak.

Moreover, due to the restrictive American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) guidelines and the red tape of utilization review procedures, apparently few doctors in Butte County are willing to accept the cases of workers' comp patients who need attention for long term chronic pain.

This confirms what I've been predicting for some time. The system's complications are affecting access to workers' comp services for individuals in sparsely populated areas of California. And just as claimants in rural areas will have difficulty finding treatment, so will they have trouble finding legal counsel as the cumulative effects of the reform discourage attorney involvement.

Since I've been writing about this, I have received e-mails from workers from these kinds of places. Glenn County. Imperial County. Modoc County. They couldn't find a doctor or a lawyer or both. Isolated, some of these workers are the most in need.

Those sitting in ivory towers at the California Division of Workers' Compensation and the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, if not the legislature, need to give some attention to this.

Starting in 1979, Julius Young has represented thousands of individuals who have sustained life-changing injuries or illnesses while on the job. A partner of Boxer & Gerson since 1988, he practices workers' compensation and disability law in Oakland. This article originally appeared in his blog, Workerscompzone.com, which focuses on California's workers' compensation law, its politics, and culture.

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