BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2732
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Date of Hearing: April 2, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON INSURANCE
Henry T. Perea, Chair
AB 2732 (Committee on Insurance) - As Amended: March 28, 2014
SUBJECT : Workers' compensation
SUMMARY : Contains several technical clean-up provisions to the
workers' compensation reforms of 2012. Specifically, this bill :
1)Clarifies that limitations on assignment of medical liens
apply only to assignments made on or after January 1, 2013.
2)Corrects an erroneous citation to "subdivision (d) of Section
4604.5" relating to chiropractic treatment in workers'
compensation that should read "subdivision (c) of Section
4604.5."
3)Clarifies that the reimbursement of the filing fee that a lien
claimant is entitled to receive upon prevailing in the
proceeding to collect on the lien is paid by the employer or
insurer.
4)Strikes out references to "vocational rehabilitation services"
in one Labor Code Section that should have been stricken nine
years ago when that benefit was eliminated from the workers'
compensation system.
5)Allows an employer to use a form prescribed by the
Administrative Director (AD) of up to two pages to describe
the denial or modification of treatment for purposes of
advising the employee of the right to seek independent medical
review.
6)Adds specified medical-legal expenses to the list of costs for
which a lien may be filed.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes a medical provider to file a lien in order to
secure payment of a disputed billing in the workers'
compensation system, including the right to assign (sell) the
lien rights, but limits the ability of a lien claimant to
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assign the rights to the lien to a third party to
circumstances where the lien claimant is retiring or going out
of business.
2)Limits the number of office visits for which a chiropractor
can be paid for providing treatment to an injured worker, and
limits a chiropractor who has reached that limit from acting
as the injured worker's primary treating physician.
3)Provides that a lien claimant is entitled to be reimbursed the
filing fee paid to file the lien if the lien claimant prevails
in the proceeding to collect on the lien.
4)Requires an employer to notify an employee of an adverse
utilization review decision, and rights to independent medical
review, on a one-page form.
5)Specifies the costs for which recovery may be pursued by
filing a lien.
6)Deletes medical treatment appointments from the list of issues
that may be scheduled for expedited hearings.
FISCAL EFFECT : Undetermined.
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose . The bill is designed to adopt technical and
conforming changes to the statutes that were part of the 2012
workers' compensation reform package. These amendments
correct some vague drafting and erroneous cross-references, or
update provisions that have been rendered obsolete or
otherwise require changes due to implementation issues.
2)Liens . SB 863, Statutes 2012, Chapter 363, among a broad
range of reforms to the workers' compensation system,
restricted the assignability of medical liens. Evidence
suggested that a cottage industry had developed whereby
questionable services or billings would be encouraged by third
parties, who would immediately purchase the lien rights from
the providers of these services. In response to these
practices, the Legislature adopted limitations on the
assignability of medical liens to discourage the practices
that were considered costly to employers with little if any
benefits to injured workers. However, the bill did not
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clearly state that the new limitations were to apply only to
liens assigned after the bill's effective date. The bill
clarifies this uncertainty.
The bill also clarifies that the employer bears the cost of
reimbursing a lien fee when the employee prevails. This is
not controversial, but the statute does not currently specify
this. The bill also clarifies that a medical-legal bill can
be collected through the lien process.
3)Expedited hearings . In the drafting of SB 863, medical
treatment appointments were inadvertently adding to a list of
legal issues that could be scheduled for expedited hearings.
That this inclusion was accidental is shown by the erroneous
numbering sequence that the item had in the Code (since
corrected in last year's Code Clean-up bill). The deletion
merely corrects the inadvertence.
4)Vocational rehabilitation . These services were repealed as a
workers' compensation benefit in 2004. However, the Labor
Code was not properly conformed to eliminate all references to
these services. The bill deletes obsolete references to these
services that are no longer among the benefits injured workers
receive.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None received.
Opposition
None received.
Analysis Prepared by : Mark Rakich / INS. / (916) 319-2086