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Monday, April 20, 2009

10 Dangerous and Expensive Traps for Injured USPS Employees

WOL+MED specializes in the treatment of work injuries for USPS employees. After reading the manual for treating federal workers comp cases, we realized that USPS employees can lose money and their work injury benefits several different ways if they're not careful, and if they don't have a doctor who understands how to avoid these problems. So, here's a list of 10 ways a USPS employee can use work injury benefits and money.


1. Choose the right doctor the first time. Future unauthorized changes of treating doctors could make you personally responsible for the cost of medical treatment.

2. You must claim your benefits in order to receive them. Having dependents increases your check from 67% of your normal pay, to 75% of your normal pay.

3. You must fill out the Form CA-16 and OWCP-1500 and give it to your doctor so that you won’t be held personally responsible for your medical bills.

4. You must fill out your Form CA-1 within 30 days of your injury or you may not receive Continuation of Pay (COP).

5. Medical Evidence of Your Injury must be reported to your employer within 10 work days or your COP may be terminated.

6. You must fill out a Form CA-7 (Claim for Compensation on Account of Traumatic Injury or Occupational Disease) if you can’t return to work due to your injury and you are losing pay for more than 3 days.

7. If you don’t fill out a Form CA-8 for continuing compensation, after the CA-7 dates run out, continuing compensation may not be paid to you while you are off work.

8. You must return to work on-time, as determined by your doctor, or you can to lose compensation or COP.

9. If your injury is not thoroughly documented by your doctor, you can lose your medical benefits and payment during your time off from work.

10. Not filing your required paperwork on-time and to the right people, can cause you to lose all of your injury benefits.

WOL+MED doctors and staff will fill out your CA forms with you in the office to make sure they are correct and filed on time. They are also expert at doing a complete Letter of Causation proving that your injury is work-related. It's not easy to find a doctor who will treat your federal workers comp injury, but WOL+MED is expert in that area. We love helping injured USPS employees.

If you were injured while working for the United States Postal Service, we can help you. Call us in Denton, TX at (940) 484-7000 or in Dallas at (972) 572-5000. You can also visit us on the web at www.wolmed.com.

We want to be your doctor!