Effective July 1, physicians who perform medical-legal evaluations for injured
workers will get a 25 percent reimbursement increase. This pay raise was encouraged by CMA and approved by the Division of Worker’s Compensation (DWC) in hopes of increasing the number of qualified physicians interested in performing these evaluations. CMA had told DWC that the previous pay rate was inadequate for physicians performing complex medical-legal evaluations.

The $100 worker’s comp lien filing fee has also been repealed, effective July 1, thanks to the budget deal approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month. The filing fees were established as part of workers’
compensation update enacted in 2003. The fee was intended to reduce the number of liens that are unnecessarily filed by health care providers when reimbursement for their services is not in doubt. In reality, the number of liens filed did not decrease and the extra work involved processing the liens and related filing fees took Division of Workers’ Compensation staff away from other essential duties.

Also taking effect July 1 is an increase to the medical and medical-legal travel mileage reimbursement (to 44.5 cents per mile).

Contact: CMA’s Reimbursement Hotline, 888/401-5911.