Case Nurses — Can Workers’ Compensation Claimants Trust Them?

An article asks — Should I trust the nurse case manager for my workers’ compensation claim? The author of that article provides a short answer — “Be careful.”

In workers’ compensation claims, insurance adjusters will often use case nurses. These case nurses claim their goal is to help you with your doctors. Is that their real goal?

I still believe many case nurses truly want to help injured workers navigate a complicated medical system. However, many other case nurses seem to have a different goal. Instead of being helpful, these other case nurses work to delay or deny claims. They accomplish this goal by providing the doctors with bad information, by complicating the scheduling of appointments or by gathering information to help the insurance adjuster wrongly deny your claim.

The problem for many injured workers is that you often cannot tell the good nurses from the bad nurses until it is too late. That is why the article answers it’s own question by advising injured workers to “be careful” in their dealings with case nurses.

Although your case manager claims she is helping you, that may not be true. Case nurses are paid by the insurance company and the insurance company wants to cut medical costs and disability costs at your expense.