In addition to using a nurse case manager and a vocational rehabilitation counselor to try to terminate your workers’ compensation benefits, there are other indirect tricks the insurance carrier for the employer will try.
Some nurse case managers will try to play havoc with your medical appointment schedules. When you tell the nurse case manager that you have an appointment, the nurse case manager may say she cannot make the appointment or she/he just doesn’t appear at the appointment. When you go to the appointment and make a follow-up appointment, the NCM reschedules the appointment but doesn’t tell you in time enough to do anything about it. This tactic is unethical but some NCMs may try it.
In addition, we have seen NCM’s re-schedule appointments when the client is only running five minutes late, as a tactic to delay the claim and delay treatment.
Please know that the NCM does not have any right to reschedule appointments. Medical appoints are for the patient’s convenience, not the convenience of the nurse case manager. The best protection is to directly inform each doctor you see that you do not give the NCM permission to change your appointments.
