If you haven’t reported the work injury, call your employer now How? Send an email or leave a voicemail letting them know when you were injured! If you’ve been seriously injured at work, the best way to ensure that your rights will be protected is to report the injury and get the necessary medical attention immediately! Call and put Sandoval to work for you! Every case is different but, below are some general recommendations if you are injured on the job: REPORT THE INCIDENT! REPORT YOUR INJURIES! It does not matter how minor it may seem or if you don’t really know what type of ... Continue Reading

Non-Subscriber claims are set up in such way that, if you don’t report the injury within a certain timeframe, usually 24 hours, you could be denied wage and medical benefits. We all know that sometimes following an accident, you don’t always know if you’re really injured or, you don’t know how serious the injury is. We naturally try to give it some time and see if the pain or discomfort will simply go away. When you have an injury incident at work, you cannot “give it some time” because it will affect your ability to prove that your injury came about from a specific incident at work. It’s ... Continue Reading

An Adverse Benefit Determination after you see the IME doctor If you’ve been receiving treatment and then, suddenly, you are asked to go see a doctor for the first time, chances are, that examination is a Defense medical examination or an IME. After you see the IME doctor, you typically will receive a letter with the report informing you that, based on the good doctor’s examination, your benefits have been terminated. That letter informing you that your rights have been terminated is an Adverse Benefit Determination. It informs you that you a have a right to appeal the decision, but you have ... Continue Reading

What is an IME? If you’ve been injured working for a Texas Non-Subscriber employer, you may have received some treatment and then you’ve been asked to go see a doctor for an Independent Medical Examination or an IME. What is an IME? First of all, it’s not INDEPENDENT in any sense of the word. It’s the set-up. This is a Defense ordered and payed medical examination where essentially you are going to see a “doctor” for the first time and he is going to answer some questions asked by the insurance company. For example, whether your injury is related to the work accident or whether, at this stage ... Continue Reading

The truth hurts. In a nutshell, the adjuster in your case is delaying your treatment because they don’t want to have documented evidence of your injury. Approving tests that confirm that an injury is work related is not in the best interest of your employer and of the insurance company. This is also why the adjuster tells you that you cannot go see your own doctor. Well, you really can but, it will be at your expense. It’s not always possible to go see your own doctor and so an injured employee usually elects to wait for approval of the recommended tests, like an MRI. Remember that insurance ... Continue Reading

If your employer is a Texas Non-Subscriber, your treatment will be determined by what benefits you have in your employer EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLAN. Either at the time that you hired on with your employer or, when your employer purchased their non-subscriber work injury insurance, your employer asked that you sign some insurance paperwork. Usually, at that time, you would have received the employee version of the PLAN called the SUMMARY PLAN DESCRIPTION. As part of this insurance arrangement, you very likely also signed an agreement to arbitrate any work injury dispute with your employer. In ... Continue Reading

If you are reading this, then chances are that you have been injured on the job and you’re not quite sure what kind of coverage your employer will have. Generally speaking, if you have been receiving some type of medical attention and you’ve been speaking with an insurance agent along the way, your employer has one of two possible insurance coverages: Your Employer has Texas Workers’ Compensation, or Your Employer is a Texas NON-SUBSCRIBER. If your employer has Texas Workers’ Compensation, then, determining what rights you have will be dependent on the Texas Workers’ Compensation ... Continue Reading

If you’ve been injured working for a Texas Non-Subscriber, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you don’t need to seek legal advice until your treatment or benefits are denied. Time is not your friend. Some Texas Non-Subscriber employers provide wage and health benefits right until after the statute of limitations for the injury expires and you know longer have a right to file a lawsuit against them. They figure that if they keep you happy, by providing benefits, you won’t have any reason to think that you should sue your employer for injuries and limitations that you may still have. Once ... Continue Reading

Suffering an injury at work has numerous consequences! And, without sound legal advice, you’re putting your future at risk! Who pays your wages and the doctors’ bills? What if you have to live with this injury for the rest of your life? In Texas, coverage for work injuries depends on Employer status: Are they a Texas Non-Subscriber? Are they Texas Self-Insured?Do they have Texas Worker’s Compensation?Or, are they UNINSURED? Texas Work Injury Attorney Hector Sandoval represents injured workers employed by Texas Non-Subscriber Companies. A Texas Non-Subscriber Employer is a company that ... Continue Reading