I Don’t Want To Close My Claim

All workers’ compensation claims are ultimately finalized. Many patients are apprehensive about this process and some patients express a desire to keep their claim open indefinitely. Unfortunately, that is not practical or feasible. If the insurer was obliged to keep all claims open indefinitely, they would not have a viable business and we would therefore not have a workers’ compensation scheme. Insurers are entitled to close claims and it is legislated that they have that right.

In order to settle your claim, you will need to undertake a medical examination to determine your permanent impairment. This assessment is undertaken by specialists, such as myself, who have undertaken further qualifications to become an approved medical specialist for the purposes of impairment assessment. The assessment is undertaken using a rigid set of guidelines so that any two medical practitioners should come up with an identical assessment. That assessment is expressed as a percentage whole person impairment. This figure is used to determine a financial settlement for your claim. For most patients, the settlement is in the order of thousands of dollars, very rarely tens of thousands of dollars. The settlement is an acknowledgement by the insurer that you have not have made a full recovery and that you are permanently impaired to some degree.

Occasionally people voluntarily close their claim before they have fully recovered. In this situation it is often necessary to seek legal advice. A claim can on occasion be finalized with an allowance for the cost of future treatment. Some of my patients have done this in a setting where I have advised that surgery is required but it is not possible for personal reasons for them to go ahead at the present time.