Insurance companies are allowed under Illinois workers? compensation rules, to send injured workers for an Independent Medical Evaluation (IME).? This may happen when you are receiving benefits for your injury and the insurance company wants to have another medical opinion about your injuries, your treatment, and the compensation for your injuries.
Even though you are required to go the IME appointment or risk losing your benefits, you aren?t required to have to pay for it yourself.? Not only are the time and place of the appointment supposed to be reasonable, but the costs associated with the appointments for the IME are required to be given to you in advance.? The notice of the time and place for the IME should include the costs for travel, meals, and lost wages if work will be missed.
A recent Illinois case highlighted the significance of the costs being paid in advance.? A worker got the IME notice, but instead of the money for costs, there was a statement that the travel expenses would be paid at the exam.? This is not what the law requires though.? Payment for travel for the IME should be given along with the notice.? And if the costs are not included, the worker does not have to go to the IME appointment.?
In this case, when the worker did not show up for the appointment, her benefits were terminated.? The insurer?s position was that benefits could be terminated because the employee did not fulfill her obligation to go to the scheduled IME.? But in fact it was the notice for the IME that didn?t stand up, and excused the employee from keeping the appointment.
The failure to prepay the travel expenses made the notice for the IME invalid, so the fact that benefits were cut off because the employee missed the IME date was unreasonable.? This can end up costing the employer more money.? If benefits are not paid in a timely way, and there is no reasonable justification for it, then they can end up owing you more money than just the original benefits you were entitled to.? So where they rely on the workers? failure to go to the IME to stop benefits, this decision is not reasonable if it is based on their failure to send a proper notice with prepaid costs.
If you have any question about whether you can miss a scheduled appointment, it is better to discuss it with an attorney to be sure you won?t be hurting your case.? But if you are asked to go for an IME, you should not have to risk losing money on a promise to reimburse you later.
We are workers' compensation attorneys that help people with Illinois work injuries anywhere in IL via our statewide network of attorneys.? Contact us and we will answer your questions or find the right lawyer for your situation.
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