Resources

For the past several years, injured workers in the state of Florida have found it difficult to obtain competent legal representation in their worker’s compensation case because of the 2003 amendments to the Florida worker’s compensation statutes limiting carrier paid fees to claimant’s attorneys who successfully secured benefits on the claimant’s behalf. In Murray v. Mariner Health (PDF), a case challenging the statute, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the statue was ambiguous and that the fee compensating the attorney at $8.11 per hour for securing benefits was unreasonable. It didn’t take long for certain industry to attack the ruling. The following day Associated Industries of Florida, one of the largest insurance industries in the state of Florida, criticized the…Read More

Do you ever wonder what would happen if an injury or illness wiped out all of your savings?  You may say “I have disability insurance for that”.  That’s a good start, but what if they don’t pay?  Then what?  Do you have a back up plan?  Waiting to find out could cost you everything you own. If you have already purchased a disability policy, here is some of what you should look for: How long is your elimination period? The elimination period is the amount of time you must remain disabled before the insurance company will begin paying you.  For most long term disability, the elimination period is 180 days.  That means you will need at least enough money to…Read More

...received the Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles award from the National Business Group on Health this month. Perhaps the message is “We’ll treat you well…….as long as you are well”. www.lawyersandsettlements.comRead More

Check out “Insurance Company Rules” - a collaboration between Health Care For America Now (HCAN) and Public Service Administration (PSA).Read More

Does it seem like the insurance company is taking too long to decide your claim?  Are they asking you for extension, after extension after extension to decide your claim?  Do they ask you to send them more evidence of your disability only send you back a big fat denial?  Delays and denials by the insurance company are just some of the frustrations expressed by our clients in ERISA disability clients.  While the regulations set the standard on the time limits of when the insurance company must decide an initial application or an appeal of a denied claim, as well as how many extensions they can request and the length of the extensions, there are things you can do to help…Read More

Did you know that in insurance disability claims the insurance company can secretly videotape your activities?  That’s right; the van parked down the street could have a video camera watching your every move. When they send you that activity log to fill out, don’t be fooled.  They are not really wanting to know how limited you are in your activities; they want to see if they can catch you in a lie about your activities.  When you complete those activity logs NEVER say you NEVER engage in any specific activity. Follow your doctor’s advice on what activities you can engage in and those you should avoid. Keep a diary of your daily activates which you can refer to when completing…Read More

By Will Dunham Tue Mar 18, 2:44 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A surprising number of people — more than 60 percent — still suffer significant pain a year after a traumatic injury in a car crash or other cause, showing the need for better pain treatment, researchers said. In a study published on Monday in the journal Archives of Surgery, researchers tracked 3,047 patients ages 18 to 84 from 14 U.S. states who survived an acute traumatic injury.A year after the injury, 63 percent reported that they still experienced pain related to the injury, with most having pain in more than one region of the body. On average, the patients assessed their pain at 5.5 on a 10-point scale…Read More

If you are accused of malingering based upon the fake bad scale on the mmpi2, read about the creator of the fake bad scale in an article called: Welding’s Toxic Legacy: Did a 5 Billion Dollar Industry Cover up the Health Risks of Manganese to Thousands of Workers? It showed Paul Lees Haley, the creator of the fake bad scale, being paid 860,000.00 (he’s not even a medical doctor) The same article cites Dr. Erin Bigler, a professor of psychology at Brigham Yong University saying, “It has every appearance of the industry buying science” www.publicintegrity.orgRead More

A new article was recently published indicating the Fake Bad Scale adopted by the University of Minnesota Press as a part of the MMPI2 scoring package has results in over 50% of women, depending on the cut score used, in a hospital with documented eating disorders actually failing the scale. The article is critical of the process by which the scale was actually adopted and concludes, “The FBS does not appear to be sufficiently reliable or valid test for measuring “faking bad” nor should it be used to impute the motivation to malinger in those reaching its variable and imprecise cutting scores.” 12/17/07, Butcher, James, Gass, Carlton, Cumella, Edward, Zina, Kally, Willliams, Carolyn Potential for Bias in MMPI2 Assessment Using…Read More

Imagine going out on disability, losing all your benefits – health insurance, life insurance, maybe even your job –only to find out you do not qualify for disability benefits under your insurance policy. This could lead to financial disaster. Every year millions of people purchase disability insurance, negotiated by their employer, without ever reading the policy. Because they didn’t read the policy they didn’t realize that there are preexisting clauses that may disqualify them from collecting benefits or that the policy limits or denies coverage for the medical condition that they have, or that the benefits offered under the policy are not enough to replace their loss of income. Not only do they have one of these worthless policies, but…Read More