Does Workers’ Comp Cover Medical Care for Personal Health Issues – One of the most misunderstood and overlooked medical benefits is about treatment for non-work-related conditions. Find out what they aren’t telling you about what workers’ comp can cover when it comes to personal conditions that need to be treated in order to treat your work injury.
You don’t want to pay for medical care from your own pocket
What happens if your work injury medical care is in limbo because of a personal health condition? Here are two examples we often see. A client needs surgery, but they’ve got diabetes and they need to get their diabetes under control in order to get the surgery. They’re told, “Hey, you need to go to your own doctor. You need to get your diabetes under control. You need to pay for that. You need to pay for the testing.”
Another client who might not have health insurance, might not have a doctor, may not be working, and may not have the funds to get the medical care they need. Both of these situations can leave a person feeling hopeless and stuck because they can’t afford to get medical tests and diagnoses or to get treatment for their conditions.
Your workers’ compensation covers your medical care for non-work-related injury conditions
The problem is, is that a lot of the treating doctors in work comp don’t understand that under Colorado workers’ compensation law, workers’ compensation covers the treatment, diagnosis, evaluation of any non-work-related injury condition if that’s required to get at the treatment for the work-related condition.
Here are just a few examples of what’s included under Colorado’s workers’ compensation law.
- if you need to get your diabetes under control for a surgery
- if you need a cardiac evaluation because you’ve got some sort of condition and need to get cardiac clearance before you can return to work
- if you need to quit smoking and you need a smoking cessation program to help you quit smoking before they do surgery on you
- if you need a weight loss program
These things are covered by workers’ compensation in order to help the insurance company get to treating you for the work-related condition. Now, this obviously doesn’t mean that everything is going to be covered by the workers’ compensation system. It just means that the reasonable treatment needed to treat a non-work-related injury condition is covered under workers’ compensation, but they won’t tell you this Sometimes the doctors just don’t know it and the adjusters won’t volunteer that information.
Does Workers’ Comp Cover Medical Care for Personal Health Issues? It’s a complicated process, especially when information is being withheld from you
And that is why it’s helpful, when you are in this workers’ compensation maze, to have somebody who knows the law, knows the system, and does this every day. You need somebody to run this maze with you and that’s where we come in. We help people who have been injured on the job here in Colorado. We’ve been doing it since 1995. It is 100% of what we do. Give us a call at 970-356-9898. You can go onto our website, on Facebook, YouTube, on the internet www.kaplanmorrell.com, we would love to talk with you. All of our consultations are free. There are no obligations. If we do help you, we only charge a contingent fee based on what we get for you.