NURSE CASE MANAGERS
by Chad Snow, Attorney and Managing Partner
One of the insurance company’s best tools in reducing their
costs (and your benefits) is by hiring a “Nurse Case Manager” to work on your
case. These are usually R.N.’s who try to act like they are your
advocate, but are really just an agent of the insurance company. They
will arrange for you to see doctors who are usually extremely
insurance-oriented, schedule your appointments, and then attend the appointment
with the injured worker. At the appointment, they can then pressure
the doctor into limiting the amount of medical care that the injured worker
receives and into releasing him or her to work as soon as possible – even if
the injured worker doesn't feel ready to return. Generally, our firm does
not allow nurse case managers on our files. One of the benefits of having
a Workers Compensation Attorney is that any agent of the insurance company
(NCM’s) is not allowed to have contact with you as it violates the
attorney-client privilege. In some special cases we do allow them to work
with our clients and they can be very helpful. For example, in
catastrophic injury cases where the injured worker is unable to make
appointments or follow up on their own medical care or in cases where multiple
specialists are involved. I don’t mean to sound overly negative about
nurse case managers, and there are some that are very conscientious and great
at what they do – but we’ve had too many bad experiences with them over the
years to not be at least a little skeptical. If you have questions about
a Nurse Case Manager in your case, you should contact one of our attorneys to
see if it is hurting your case.
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