(Chats 6-12-19) OWCP Q&A: Your Federal Workers' Comp Questions Answered

In this Q&A-style episode of Breaking OWCP, Chris tackles a rapid-fire series of real questions from federal employees navigating the frustrating world of workers' compensation. From the critical importance of the CA-16 form for emergency care to strategies for escaping the "black hole" of a bad OWCP doctor, this episode provides actionable advice for protecting your rights. Learn how to handle supervisors who aggressively combat claims, the statute of limitations on reporting injuries, and why filing grievances is often your best line of defense.

Key Takeaways

• The Power of the CA-16: Why this form is crucial for getting your first 60 days of medical bills paid—even if your claim is ultimately denied—and the strict four-hour rule your supervisor must follow.
• Changing Treating Physicians: The exact steps (and the letter you need to write) to request a new doctor when your current one is failing to get your claim accepted.
• Combating Supervisor Retaliation: How to handle management that threatens your job, refuses to file paperwork, or writes false statements on your CA-1.
• Navigating Denied Surgeries: Understanding why DOL often denies surgery requests (hint: it's usually the diagnosis) and how a "Diagnosis Expansion Report" can fix it.
• The Three-Year Rule (CA-2): Clarifying the statute of limitations for occupational disease claims and why you should never wait until retirement to file.

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Wednesday Night OWCP Chats with Chris & Gini

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome back to the Breaking O WCT podcast. Join Chris and Jeannie as they bring you expert advice on Federal Workers Comp guiding you step by step to get back to work the right way. Let's break down the barriers and get you the help you deserve.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I'm back. Alright, so yeah, we've got three Facebook pages. I was on the wrong one. So if you're over on the other one, Jerry, come on over to this one. And thanks to Jeannie for telling me that I'm an idiot and I was on the wrong Facebook page. People are probably wondering where the heck I was. Hi Shannon. Thanks for hopping on. Goodness, I'm glad I got that over with. If I had jitters, I would have gotten them out right then, but I don't really experience those. Welcome to Wednesday night OWCP chats on the correct page. Hi Tammy, Jerry, Shannon, Mike. What's up, Mike? I'm back in Texas. So how's it going, Mike? Anyways, I was saying just a minute ago on the other page, which is the wrong page, that we were just in Mobile, Alabama, at the Alabama Rural Letter Carriers Association. We had a banquet that was a Mardi Gras banquet. It was awesome, had a lot of fun. You can see our pictures. Jeannie likes to post pictures, so I'm sure if you've been on, you can see some of those. And I was saying that we're preparing now. I'm getting myself mentally prepared. It's gonna be tough to spend four days at Daytona Beach. So that's gonna be hard. So I want to I'm gonna try though, but in seriousness, I want to say thank you to Natasha and the Florida Rule Letter Carers for inviting us back out. That is a tremendous location, and I really like teaching OWCP to Florida rural carers. Tonight I'm gonna be just doing QA. So bring your questions, I'll give you some answers. Everybody share this. Go. I was saying this on the other page, total waste of time. I'm glad you weren't there, except for you, Jerry. Thank you. Get your phone out and text all of your friends that you work with. Text them to go to Facebook and get on Wednesday night OWCP chats. Tell them to go on and look at it because they need it. And you know they need it. If you're not hurt, that's awesome, but odds are you're going to be at some point in your career, and be a really good idea to know what you're doing when you get hurt. Please take the time to invite people onto this page. The uh the strength of me being able to teach it is you being able to spread it. And I'm gonna take a little bit of time and ramble on for a minute until the uh the views that I see doubles. So please, everybody, take the time to share, text your friends, do whatever it takes, get people on. Also, while I'm wasting time, let me tell you that one thing that's not a waste of your time is Twitter. So everybody get on Twitter. So far, we have 354 followers. That's great. It's gone up a lot in the last couple of weeks, but there are 2.8 million federal employees, so we're not even getting close. Tonight, by the end of this, I want to be to 400. That's just 46 people. So surely we can get 46 more followers. So if you don't have Twitter, go to your app store or Google Play Store, depending on what kind of phone you have. Download the Twitter app, it will walk you through starting a free account. They're all free, but it walks you through it. It's so easy. And so once you get your account, find Federal Injury Centers. But our page is called at the at sign, Fed Injury Center. At Fed Injury Center. And I want you to go on there and follow that page. And by the end of this evening, I'd like to have 400 followers. That's not even close. The 400 of you that will be by the end of this need to tell 10 friends each. There was a lady I was talking to, and she brought me her phone, and I even I did it for her. So those of you that know how to do this have a friend that doesn't know how, take their phone from them and do it for them. Okay, just follow the steps. And I posted the steps on Facebook earlier. So everybody has a responsibility to tell people, but don't tell one person, don't tell two people, tell 10 people. Okay, you gotta spread the word. Spreading the word on this is the way that we take our education and spread it among all of you. Because there's a limited number of you watching, but you all know people. So make that happen. Let's start by Twitter. Not a waste of time. I'm posting laws, rules, regulations that you're gonna find useful, especially when your supervisors try to give you a hard time or hose your ability to file a work injury claim. With that said, I'm gonna answer questions tonight. I hope there are a lot of them. I'm scrolling down, looking for questions. So Corby is watching from Florida on vacation, but from Texas. Texas. Corby, welcome to the broadcast. I'm glad you're watching. Where are you at? From Texas. I'm in Denton. Texas. Jeannie thinks it's funny. I don't even know. I don't like to say Texas unless we say it right. Texas. Andrew's on, Derek's on. Mike Wilson's on. Bridget, hello, Bridget. Tammy Washington from from Washington State. Welcome, Washington State. Shannon asks, is there a way to post these videos on Twitter? That's a genie question. Now, fortunately, Jeannie's watching. She's in Florida while I'm in Texas. She's hitting all the like and love buttons right now. I think something's wrong with her phone, or she's just hitting it a lot. But she'll have to look that up. She is the social media genius of the two of us. I just teach this stuff. But I like that. Is there a way to post these videos on Twitter? You have people that don't use Facebook but follow us on Twitter. That's awesome, Chan. And please tell more people to follow us. And we'll work on that. It's a really good tip. Port Allen, Louisiana, Juanita. Good evening. Melissa from California, hello, West Coast. And Tammy, you're new here. Listen, what we do is we talk about OWCP. I teach you strategies, techniques to get your claims accepted. As you can see on my shirt, my motto is no more denied claims. Nobody can guarantee a claim won't get denied, but I can guarantee you that if you understand the rules that I'm teaching, that your odds go way up. I was just in this other uh rule carrier convention in Alabama, and I asked the same question I ask everywhere. What percentage of your coworkers would you guess have some sort of work-related injury or condition? And the answers are like every place else I go, 60%, 80%, everybody, everyone I talk to has this idea that everybody's hurt, or at least half, and I agree because these jobs are really hard. And so what's happening, and especially for you, Tammy, is that when injuries happen, either A, people don't attempt to report their injuries or file their injuries, which is a serious problem. B, they do it and their supervisors give them a hard time, they threaten their jobs, they retaliate. Or C, they do the whole thing but get their claim denied because the doctor does such a poor job. And so we're teaching what you can do to protect yourself in the event that one of those things happens to you. Last year, one out of 13 federal employees had an accepted claim. Nobody else did. That's a serious problem, and that's why we're working on this, working on this. And Tammy again, I just heard of the group. Thank you. Listen, pass it on. Please tell everybody you know that this is going on. Noelle from California. Vancouver, Washington. Okay. I didn't see the Washington part. Vancouver, Washington. Hi from New York. Hello, Kathy. Indiana, Emily. Who else we got? Nebraska. Alright, Monica. Doctor release is July 1st. A health worker sent my doctor a letter asking if I could come back earlier. Is that legal? Yes, it is. A nurse case manager can ask the doctor questions. It's up to the doctor to give medically sound answers. So, yes, they can ask, but they can't order. So your case manager cannot order your doctor around. The doctor's in charge. Don't forget that. Jerry asks, How long do you have to respond to a modified job offer? Supervisor gave me five days in a letter. I thought we had 30 days to discuss with the doctor and get back to them. 30 days is exactly my understanding. I'll find that role for you, Jerry, and I'll post that on Twitter. Twitter. Okay. I'll find that post it on Twitter. I've got a good lifeline myself for those types of issues. That's not really an OWCP question, is Jerry, but I know exactly where to get that. And you do have 30 days. Okay. The problem is, and the rule says that if you're offered something that's suitable that meets your your uh CA 17, and you refuse it, then you can be you can lose all your compensation. So the one thing for sure is if it meets your your CA 17 restrictions, you should probably consider taking it. Tammy, your claim was accepted. It was on video. What do you mean by that, Tammy? Jennifer told me to file my CA2 with a statement medical information to follow. I got my receipt, but OIC would not fill her part out. She says she sent it to labor. What now? Just wait a few weeks. Alright, so here's the rule. When you turn in your CA2 to whomever you turn it into, supervisor, HR, whatever, their responsibility is to fill out page two, give you a receipt plus a copy of page one and two, and get that turned in within 10 days. Once that's turned in, Department of Labor will send you something in the mail, acknowledging receipt, giving you a claim number that does not mean that your claim is accepted, but just letting you know you have a claim number. And then you'll go to your doctor and get a narrative filled out and get that sent in to DOL as well. Those will match up and hopefully result in an accepted claim. Tammy, but OWCP is now messing with me. I'll definitely pass it on. They'll do that, Tammy. They will mess with you. Lots of things they do are just by the book, and it feels like they're messing with you. But if you have any questions about what's going on, please send us a private message over Facebook and we'll try to help you that way. If we can't, we'll definitely be glad to get on the phone with you and help you out there. We do that all the time. Another Pennsylvania. Evacuation. Yes, okay. My place is also like a makeshift poker house. Legal. Okay, the house doesn't take a cut. Except that I win and it's my house. I take the whole cut. But these are my poker signs, some of them. Um, but less about me, more about OWCP. Alright, Jenny, question. I slipped and fell and did a lateral on my entire foot, which sprained my ankle in two places in my knee. After I could walk, finally my entire leg was screwed up to the hip. Can I claim a different body part? Absolutely. So if you fell and all of this stuff was injured in the same event, then it all should go under the same CA1 claim. So if you didn't initially indicate on your CA1 in the front page, like box 14 or whatever, that you injured all those body parts, but now they're all hurting. You gotta go back to your doctor and tell your doctor to write a new narrative and add those new diagnoses to your claim. If your claim's approved already, it's called a it's called a diagnosis expansion report. If you have any questions about that, give us a call and we'll help you with that. Oh, your accident injury was on video. That should have been a slam dunk. Everyone should have a video following them around. Alright, Mike. So safety manager said to us, the union, after we asked them to issue a CA 16 within four hours of employee injury quote. Emergency room don't care about paperwork. They won't deny ER care treatment over not having a CA 16. Yet WTF is right. I told him it's not the point. If the hospital doesn't get the get that CA 16, the employee will get bills for the work-related injury. I think grievance, I also think grievance. Hashtag file aggrievance, Mike. File a grievance every single time you don't get a CA 16, file agrievance. So for those of you that are new and don't understand the CA16 rule, let me explain it. If you have a CA1 claim, which is an injury that happens in a single shift, and as long as you report your injury within seven days of the injury, which we all understand that we report now, immediately, right away. Don't wait, ever, never, ever wait. Report it now. So you report your injury now, and then you request a CA 16. CA 16 pays all of your medical bills for the first 60 days, even when your claim's not approved. And if your claim never gets approved, you don't have to pay the money back. So the CA 16 is critically important. It's not just for the ER, it's for MRIs and emergency surgeries and therapy and doctors' visits. It's really important because your claim's not accepted, and without it, doctors are going to be asking for your health insurance, which means co-pays and deductibles. So once you request a CA 16, your supervisor has four hours to give it to you. And for those of you that would like to have the exact code from the Code of Federal Regulations on that rule, it's one of the most important rules, okay? It prevents you from paying money out of your own pocket. Is that good or good? Good, exactly. So those of you that would like the role, go to Twitter. Get a Twitter account and follow me at Fed Injury Center. At Fed Injury Center. And you'll find the CA16 rule there, including the four-hour rule. It's A and B in the same code, but you'll see it there. So go to Twitter and follow me at Fed Injury Center. And file agreements. Damn it, file agreements. And uh yeah, Jerry, if if your limited duty offer is not in your restrictions, definitely give it to your union. It will violate your CA 17. You can't accept something to go against your doctor's orders. And so you want to give them something back in return that says, here's how my limited duty offer does not follow my doctor's restrictions and have them fix that. You should not willingly put yourself in harm's way. All right, Javon, all my super did was sign the CA1 apart and got a letter from HR that said no claim number yet. John from Federal Injury from Boston said hold tight and breathe. That's right, definitely correct. If you've got your CA1 completely filled out and it was turned into DOL, you may have it may take you 10 days to two weeks to get a claim number. But you need to start calling the claims examiner right away to say, number one, did you receive my CA1 paperwork? Okay, that would be helpful to know since your supervisor has 10 days to turn it in from when you fill it out. And number two, what's my claim number? So you can always call. If you're not sure who to call, you can look up OWCP District Offices on Google. There's a US map, click on your state, and then scroll down, you'll see a phone number. Call that number. All right. Kathy said, can I be forced to work at other offices that request limited duty? Yes, you can. The rule is they're supposed to send, they're supposed to be able to send you up to 50 miles from your station, which is really sucky, but they can do it. They do it all the time in Florida. In Florida, they send them like 56 miles from one of these stations with management that just doesn't care about the people. Why don't the union fight for RCAs to get holiday pay? Francisco, I'm really sorry, but holiday pay is outside of my knowledge of OWCP. I just can't help you with that. I'm really sorry. But I recommend talking to your union about it. Maybe it's something you guys can bring up and get some resolution on. I don't like to say I don't know, but I don't know. All right, Lisa filed a grievance on a hostile work environment. The postmaster was allowed to read all statements from carriers, which was supposed to be private. Now he's even worse, looking for anything to complain, threatening to take a job over. I'm just gonna stop reading right there and let me tell you, you need to call and file an EEO complaint and explain what's going on and let them decide whether or not you've got a cause of action there. You can't be treated that way. You deserve and you have a right to be treated fairly. Contact the EEO and file a complaint and don't let that happen to you. If it happens to you, it will happen to your coworkers, Lisa. So you need to put a stop to it in your office. Can I still file a grievance after four months of not getting a CA 16? Shannon, what I will tell you is that there is no harm in filing a grievance. The worst thing can happen is you can lose. But if you don't file a grievance, you lost already. So follow grievance. Omar, how do I get my doctor to give me a referral to go see another doctor? By the way, my claim was approved, not for all my injury, but at least for part. Alright, Omar, that one's pretty easy. You just go to your doctor and say, Doc, I would like you to write a referral so I can go see this other doctor and tell them who the other doctor is. If they don't want to and you badly want to go see the other doctor, then ask this doctor to write a letter releasing you from care. And then go to the other doctor. What is the status of limitations on filing agreements? I'm not really sure what that answer is. That's a union question and not an OWCP question. However, I know that I've got lots of union reps on here, occasionally union presidents pop on. Somebody please answer Charlesia's question on the statute of limitations for filing agreements. Hang in there, somebody will answer you, I'm sure. Are you allowed to get a second opinion from another doctor? Absolutely. 100% just go there and get that doctor to write a narrative, though, so that you have it and you can send that in. Kathy changed doctors by writing a letter to DOL. That's correct, and that's how you do it. You write a letter to DOL saying, I want to change doctors to the following doctor. You have to list their name, their specialty, and their location, and you got to give a reason why. And lots of times, and I'm glad this came up, the problem is claims examiners now are denying these more than I've ever seen. Back in 10 years ago, they never even requested change of training doctors. They just let you leave and go to another doctor. But now what's happening is if you are at, say, a specialist office and you're seeing an orthopedic surgeon and you want to change to a general practitioner who happens to be an expert in OWCP, they're gonna say no because the specialist is a higher level credentialed doctor, which is ridiculous. And they won't let you change. But the problem for you is 11 times out of 10, that specialist is doing work getting your claim denied. And so if you can't change doctors, you're stuck in this black hole of denied claims. But here's the good news for you: if your claim is denied, your surgeon is not getting paid. That's really important for you. If they're not getting paid and they're doing a bunch of documentation for you, they're filling out CA 17s and CA20s, I promise you they are unhappy. I would take that as an opportunity, go to that specialist and say, Doc, do me a favor, please release me from care so I can go find somebody who can get my claim accepted. And once my claim gets accepted, you'll get your bills paid. Does that sound good or good? All right, they're gonna say it sounds good, and they'll write your release. Once you're released from care from that doctor, you have the right to initial selection of position. Go find another doctor. Don't stay in this perpetual black hole of hell and denials. Just don't do that to yourself. All right, let me stop for a minute. We're 20 minutes in, 21. Please share this with your friends. Text your friends, tell them that it's going on live right now. Tell them to go to Facebook to Wednesday night OWCP chats and get on here. We need to double the number of people watching. All of you, everybody who's a federal employee watching me tonight, has a responsibility to tell everybody, not one person, not two people, but ten people. Everyone's got to start spreading the word on this. One of the biggest reasons why people can't get accepted claims is they don't know how to report and file their claims. They don't know the rules to protect themselves when their supervisors try to hurt them after they file a claim. And we are giving you the rules, the guidelines, the regulations to protect yourself against management who has bad intentions or management who's not trained. And you have a right to take advantage of these benefits. Federal workers' comp benefits are the best workers' comp benefits in the country. They're unbelievably great, but you first have to have your claim accepted. And only one out of 13 federal employees has an accepted claim. That is an epidemic problem that we're trying to solve. But the best way for us to solve it is for you to take action and share it with everybody. Okay, you have a responsibility. The vast majority of you are in unions, okay? Your brothers and sisters need this information. Share it. Don't let people go without the information. Because as soon as you do, they'll get hurt and not know what to do, and they'll be stuck with a deny claim. Okay, or they'll be stuck with a bad doctor, they'll be stuck with bad reports, they'll be stuck dealing with management, giving them a hard time, retaliation, threats of termination. And those are things we can fix. And I can do a lot better job fixing it if my audience gets bigger. Help me out and tell everybody. We got about 40 minutes to go, so there's still plenty of time for you to get more people on this and watch it. Melanie. My boss changed my hours from 7 to 1 to 10 30 to 4 30, even though my restrictions include the setup of my route. Now I do four hours on the street and sit in the office and do nothing for two hours. I Been told they can do this. Is it true? Yeah, it's true. As long as what they give you meets your restrictions, they can do it. It may suck, it may be a really crappy thing for them to do, but they can do it. Technically, they can say, Hey, just come in, sit right there, and answer the phone. And you could say, Hey, supervisor, this phone's not even plugged into the wall. Don't worry, just sit there and answer it if it rings. They can do it. I've seen a lot of crazy things. They definitely can do it. Omar, you're welcome. I'm a little behind, okay? So these questions are coming in. I'm just getting to them as fast as I can, so keep them coming. Tammy says I'm having an issue finding a doctor to accept OWCP. All right, Tammy, remind me where you're located, city and state, and we'll help you with that. I'm sure Jeannie's probably already on it, but let me know your city and state, Tammy. We'll help you with that. But the number one way to do it, this is how I tell everybody to find a doctor. Go to Google. And in Google, in the search bar, I want you to search OWCP Injury Doctor and your city. So I'm in Dallas, OWCP Injury Doctor, Dallas, right? So that's the number one way to find a doctor. If there are doctors that want to help you, they will be found using that search. But Tammy, let us know where you're located. Deborah from Idaho, where do I send the CA7? I don't have my caseworker's email, only her phone number. Deborah, you fill up page one of the CA7, you attach all of your documentation. Now, what is your documentation? A CA17 if your doctor took you off of work, a CA20 that explains your case, a narrative report by your doctor explaining why you're off of work, any printouts of doctor's appointments for reasons why you were gone. Attach those things and then give it all of it to your supervisor. Okay. I have your supervisor fill out page two. Now I want you to get a copy of all that back from the supervisor. Okay. Your supervisor is responsible for sending that into DOL within five days. So the answer to your question is you turn it into your supervisor or HR or whomever you turn this into at your location, and they have five days to turn into DOL. Keep copies of everything because if they don't, you can e-comp it. To find that, you go to Google and you search OWCP e-comp, E-C-O-M-P. You can scan it into your computer and electronically upload it to DOL like that. What else we got? Right, Jerry, they can change your hours too. I've seen people whose standard hours are like 7 a.m. until whatever four, and I've seen them work crazy overnight hours that's not standard for them. I've seen some really crappy things like that. What's the correct way to fight controverting statement that is full of false claims? Paul, that is the best question I've had in weeks. Paul wants to know what's the correct way to fight a controverting statement that is full of false claims? Paul, you are a prime candidate to get on Twitter. You gotta have Twitter and go to at Fed Injury Center. This would be the best thing that ever happened to you. And many of you others as well. But Paul, go to at Fed Injury Center and follow it. You're gonna find some stuff on here about what I'm gonna tell you now. But if they have false statements, there's a there's a rule in the Code of Federal Regulations and in the U.S. Code, and it's been reiterated on USPS's website if you're a postal employee, that says any person who is responsible for making reports in connection with an OWCP claim who makes a false, a knowingly false statement, can be fined and imprisoned up to five years. That sounds huge. You need that because what do you do when you write on box 36 of your CA1 that they're gonna controvert your claim and they give a reason why? Then you want to be able to turn your phone around and you want to be able to say, wait, are you sure? Because look, if you knowingly write a false statement, you can be fined or imprisoned. Are you sure you want to say that? Because it's not true. Give them an opportunity to clean that up before they send it in. Because once they send it on, they send it in, they're at your mercy. Okay? Go to Twitter at Fed Injury Center and uh and you'll see that stuff there. You'll see the specific rules on that. And I'm really glad you asked that, Paul. Thank you for that. Laura, I think you're talking about as you're in Dallas, August 13th through the 16th. I missed some stuff up there, but I'm guessing you're talking about the National Convention. And it would be my honor and pleasure to teach this at the National Convention that's just 20 minutes away from where I live. Wouldn't that be awesome? It is in my backyard. It's at a place with this awesome steam room and great massages, but they're expensive. All right, my specialist, an orthopedic surgeon, told me my injury will heal itself. Okay. That doesn't mean you don't need therapy or some sort of intervention so that it goes faster. Meanwhile, I'm still in pain every day, exactly what I'm talking about. You're taking pills, and you don't want to take pills, I'm sure. Yeah, there you go. You don't want to live this way. So that's why I want to go to another doctor. Will OWCP approve this if I leave my currently approved doctor? They will approve it if you give them a good reason. Number one, ask your surgeon to release you from care. Number two, if they won't do that, write a letter to OWCP saying, Listen, my surgeon is not helping me. I'm just on pills and I don't want to be on pills. I want to switch doctors to somebody who wants to treat me. And I would say it like that because, man, if you say that and they deny you, I would I'd race hell about it because it's not in your best interest to just sit and take pills and not get any help. Let's see what we got going on here. Postmaster left my private medical history for everyone to see. So that's a violation of the Privacy Act. And I would definitely file an EEO on that. I would file a grievance and talk to your union about filing a labor violation. Those things are seriously uh, those are bad. I would even that's not HIPAA doesn't apply, but the Privacy Act does. Do those things I just said. That's a good start. Yeah, Tammy, OWCP sent me for what they call a second opinion, which is actually an IME. I'm wondering if I'll be able to get a copy of the report and how I'll go about doing that. You can always call the doctor and ask for a copy, otherwise call the claims examiner and tell them you like a copy. I can't guarantee you that anybody's gonna give it to you, but they're your records. Tanya has an Achilles injury. Sorry to hear that. I've seen three different doctors, all of them say I need 10x treatment, but workmen's will not approve it. How do I get this approved in the black hole that you speak of? All right, well, number one, Tanya, is your claim approved? If your claim is not approved, then OWCP will approve zero treatment. Number two, let's say you have an Achilles injury, but your accepted condition is an ankle sprain. That's a problem, too, because it's not the correct diagnosis. And that will generally result in treatments being denied. So those are the first two things. I'd say, is your claim accepted, and what is your accepted condition? After that, I'm not really sure what 10x treatment is. I wish I could tell you what that is. You probably know more about that than I do right now. But those are the two things you want to start with. And then have your doctor write a letter of medical necessity and send that to DOL for pre-authorization. Sherry, I'm in need of surgery on my back. The DOL second opinion doctor stated I need surgery. My doctor requested surgery, how long should it take? Pre-authorization request should take 72 hours. Have your doctor check back if it's been longer than that. What else we got? New York here, why does OWCP only pay you for four hours to go to the doctor's appointments? Yeah, I know. That's the rules. Just because there's not a good reason for that. There's not a good answer. The rule is they'll pay you up to four hours of your work shift. That's just the rule. And they stick to that. Christy said, management not trained is what messed my claim up two years ago. Ended up having to pay back$1,100 to USPS. Was told no light duty in our office, so was forced to sit home. Of course, so they called me to run Express Mail, which I wasn't paid for. Listen, you got to file a grievance on not letting you work if you were sent back to work. And if you had to pay back the$1,100, I'm sure that is for a continuation of pay. If your claim was ever approved, you need to put in to get that back because it's your right to have that. Your claim was accepted, but had to argue with them about. So if your claim is accepted, go back and get your$1,100. That's your money. Give it to your union and have them help you with that. Ah. Statute of limitations for grievances. 30 days of when affected party first became aware of issue being grieved. Thank you, Ava. Or Eva. I hope it's Ava. Or Eva. I hope it I'm saying you're right, whatever it is. Let's see what we got here. My caseworker told me that I have authorization for a second opinion. Do I wait for something in the mail? No, you can trust your caseworker on that. So go ahead and go do it. I filed an occupational injury and my supervisor told me, have fun proving it. If the work I do aggravates my condition, why would it be hard to prove? I filed the CA2 in April and still not denied or approved. Alright, so filing a CA2 will not get your claim approved or denied. Okay, it can get it denied. The point I'm making is you need a doctor who can write a narrative report that explains why the job aggravated your condition. If the doctor wrote a great detailed narrative on why the job aggravated your condition, and it's still, and that was e-comped, the doctor sent that in. You need to call your claims examiner and find out what the heck is going on. They should make a decision. They'll email, or not email, they will mail that decision to your home address. So call your claims examiner and find out what the heck is going on. But it's to your supervisor saying, have fun proving it. All I have in my mind is bad words, and only one of my fingers wants to show up. Who gives a crap what your supervisor thinks? If your supervisor is watching right now or standing here, I'd say, Who gives a crap what you think? Show me your medical license. That's just nasty. How long is it supposed to take to receive payment? If you're talking about payment for claim for compensation CA7s, you should turn those in every two weeks and get paid at least once a month. If they're going to deny it, they'll deny it by sending you a letter in the mail, though, and that sucks. Because that means a delay. Also, if you have, Laura wants to know, if you have an appointment for PT or to see the doctor, you have to come back to the office and complete your route or finish the day in the office. The bottom line is you're only going to get paid for your time away from work off the clock for time that you're in the office. So if you want to maximize your pay, you need to maximize your time on the clock. So try to schedule your appointments so that you can do both. Because if you go in the middle of the day and there's still time left, you're not going to get paid for the rest of your time that day if you don't go back to work. You got to go back, clock in, and do some work. It may be a hassle, but the surest way to get paid is to clock in. Because CA7s are not a guarantee. A lot of people on here will tell you that. June said, I'm only getting paid four hours and I'm a regular. I lost my health and life insurance. I've been off for three years going to therapy three times a week. Holy cow, June, that's a long time. I'm not a doctor, and I can't speak expertly on your condition. But if you're only getting paid four hours, you know, if it's possible for your doctor to write you a CA17 to lift restrictions so you can go to work for eight hours, I can see how that would be better for you financially. But again, I don't know what your condition is, so I could be way off base. So when I have an appointment, I don't do my route at all. Yeah, I don't know, Laura. I know you're replying to some to another thing, but it really just depends on your schedule and how you're able to work those things together. Elizabeth, how long for DOL to approve after paperwork is submitted? Sadly, Elizabeth, DOL claims examiners have no guidelines on this. They can take as long as they want or need to take. It typically takes 90 days to four months, which is terrible. But if you feel like it's taking too long, you should call them every day if that's what it takes and be the squeaky will. Nancy says if they need a second opinion report, they can request their complete file from DOL. Second opinion report will be in there. Good point, Nancy. That's exactly right. So if you want that, just tell your claims designer you like a copy of your complete file. Yeah, Marlon, it's completely common for them to send you to a second opinion doctor. You have to go, so don't get too worked up about it. Let's see. I missed the statute of limitations, then didn't become aware that I'd violated until I came across you both. Injured in 917, denied, then appealed, and case was accepted 818. Very nice. I'm sorry you can't follow the grievance, but I'm thankful your claim was accepted. Omar, one more question. Hey, bring all the questions you want, Omar. That's what we're doing tonight. The plant manager used all my annual leave and sick leave and then used LWAP on the rest of the time I was out on my injury instead of putting me on OWCP. How do I get all my time back? What code should it be under? So, Omar, when you filled out your CA1 form on box 15, did you select continuation of pay? Because if you did, you should have been paid up to 45 days of COP instead of taking your sick and annual leave. I think you need tomorrow to get with your union and file agreements on that because I think you might have gotten hosed real bad. To get your time back, you've got to do a leave buyback form, which is a CA7B, but it's not free. You have to actually pay to get your time back. And COP is there for you to use, and you know it's your right to have it. So double check that. But if you elected COP and they didn't let you have any COP, I would file agreements right away. I think they might have hosed you. Okay, Siffon said, I've had this hip injury for a year, and the DOL sent me for a second opinion, and I've been told that my injury is more than what my first doctor said. Should I get a lawyer? No, don't get a lawyer yet. What you want to do is have a doctor explain the extent of your injury as it actually is and get the new diagnoses accepted by doing a diagnosis expansion report, and they can upgrade your diagnosis, which to you is a downgrade because it's actually worse for you. But it adds the more severe diagnosis to your claim. A lawyer, and Eric Blauer is a lawyer we love, and he's spectacular. Everyone loves him, but he'll even tell you that he's a last resort. If you called him, he might tell you that you don't need to use him. So I'll tell you that first you need your doctor to expand your diagnosis to improve the more severe conditions. You're not even close to needing to talk to a lawyer yet. Andrew in our Clearwater office said, Chris, we hear so many patients get attendance warnings for coming to the doctor. Some are considered AWOL when the doctors put them off work on a CA 17. Yeah, so when the CA 17 takes you off of work, you can't be AWOL. The doctor, like our office, we give you a note saying that you were here from this time to this time for your work injury, and you take that back to your supervisor. But if they're calling you AWOL, you need to get with your union and file a grievance. Push back. If they're pushing you, push them back harder. And file an EEO claim too. They're not treating you fairly, they're retaliating against you, and that's illegal. Don't let them do that to you. Linda, my doctor thinks I have a torn rotator cuff, just so many years of wear and tear. Where do I start? All right, everyone, listen up. This is important. Linda made a really good point. She asked a great question. She's got a CA2 condition. It's something that happens over two or more shifts, in her case, probably over a course of years, right? Just so many years of wear and tear. But here's the rule. You have three years. Listen, everyone, listen up. You have three years on a CA2 claim from the date you knew that your condition was work-related to report your injury. Three years from when you knew it was work-related. Now keep in mind, you're not doctors. You might think it's work-related, but you might reasonably know it's work-related when the doctor said that everyone's situation is different. But it's important that you understand that on a CA2 claim, you have three years from the date that you knew it was work-related. There's also a thing that says three years from date of last exposure, which means I would never forgo filing a claim. So, Linda, where do you start? Fill out a CA2 form, get with your supervisor, have them fill out their portion and get a copy of it all back. Okay, that's how you start the process. And then go see a doctor that can write a narrative report because your doctor thinks you have torn a rotator that writes a narrative report describing how your job led to that condition. CJ Sheryl, my doctor has me on light duty, but work denied my request for light duty because my claim hasn't been approved. There is work for my restrictions, but they still denied it. Get with your union and push back. There's not a lot anybody can do about that except for your union. When you get a job offer, how long do you have to accept it? Yeah, Laura, just a little while ago, I think it was Jerry that said you have 30 days. And I would get that done as soon as possible. Make sure that the job offer matches your restrictions from your CA 17. One thing is for sure if you turn down a suitable job offer, and by suitable, I mean that it matches your CA 17. You can be penalized for that. Use caution. Oh, Omar, you did elect COP and they didn't give it to you. If you elect a COP and they didn't give it to you, I would raise hell, but start by filing a grievance. They didn't treat you fairly. And call EEO and see if you've got a see if you've got a claim there. You're not being treated fairly. That's not right. What's our phone number? Thanks for asking. 877-787-OWCP. When you call that number, Jeannie answers. And if it's something that she needs help with, she'll get the call over to me. We also have Jennifer, who's our case manager, who's got a massive amount of experience. She is definitely one of us as far as experts. And so if you get sent to Jennifer to talk, please let her help you. She is wonderful. I promise you. She'll definitely do a great job. It'll be the same thing as talking to me. Let's see what else we got. Laura said, I've reached MMI, and DOL is telling me that I can't get a schedule award in OWCP at the same time as it's true. Yeah, you can't, they're not going to double pay you, is what they're saying. Hashtag file agreievance, I love it. Shannon, I'm filing a grievance. I love it. Hashtag I'm filing a grievance. Yeah, we're having shirts made that say Jeannie has one. Hashtag file aggrievance, but I'm filing a grievance. I wish I could file agreements. I would do anything to file agreements. It would be so fun if I could just do it. But I'm not part of any unions and I'm not a federal employee, so I can't file grievances, but I'm living through you. File that grievance, Shannon. What else we got? 30 years in, and I'm starting to have hip problems now. Hey, Lori, you know what people do that's a real problem? Is they wait till they retire to file their work injuries. That's too late. They'll never get it approved. So if you think retirement is on the horizon, file your work injury claim now. Your CA2 needs to be filed right away. Don't wait till retirement, they'll deny it every time. Let's see. Oh yeah, Seroyny, that's Jeannie. So when you see serogeny Prasad, and I say Jeannie, that's who I'm talking about. AKA, she answers the phone. Hey, she's the reason we're doing this right now, by the way. She's the mastermind. Yeah, Lisa was saying you can request a different case manager and tell them why that's right. Put that in writing and send that in to your claims examiner. Melvin, uh, I'm gonna talk a little bit about disability. This isn't OWCP necessarily, although you can have a work injury and end up on disability. But here's how it works if you Are awarded federal disability, you get 60% of your income the first year, and starting in year two, you get 40% of your income until you retire. At the same time that you're taking those payments, you can also get a non-federal that pays you up to 80% of what your previous federal income was. So you get up to 80% of your income plus that 60 and 40% at the same time. That's how that works. How far can they send you to their doctor for a scheduled award? I live in New York and they're sending me 50 miles away. That's about right because they'll pay you up to a hundred miles around trip, and that's why they're doing that, because that's a hundred miles around trip. They'll pay your mileage, by the way. To get your mileage reimbursed, you need an OWCP 957 form. All forms can be found on Federal InjuryCenters.com website. There's a forms tab that says OWCP forms. So go there, federal injurycenters.com and print an OWCP 957 and fill out. It's a simple form, but fill it out and get reimbursed for your round trip mileage. Don't do that for free. Yeah, Jerry was saying that it's 14 days to file a grievance. So yeah, she's a rural carrier. The best thing I would do, because each of the unions is different, you all have different contracts with the agencies, is if you want to know how long you had to file a grievance, go to your union and ask. Because it's not the same for everybody. Great point, Jerry. Thank you. How do you prove intimidation after returning from injury? Monica, it's tough, but you start by writing a statement and explaining what's going on, get a witness if possible, and file an EEO claim, explain how you're being discriminated against. And lots of times when you file an EEO claim, they'll just cut it out. And get with your union. Do not go without the backing of your union. If you're not with the union, get with the union tomorrow. I know the dues are not free, but they're totally worth it. I hear people all the time that say, I didn't need it till I needed it. And that's the thing. You don't think you need it now, but I know a lot of people who, at the time they needed it, they're like, shoot, I'm gonna start paying my dues right away. We're big believers and advocates for the union. All right, Vicki, I have a claim on a torn meniscus, but wasn't fixed until six months later, and I've I've had to overcompensate with my other leg, and now I have severe pain in the other knee. We'll have to make a new claim for that. No. So, Vicki, what you do is you've got what's called a consequential injury. Consequential injury. And your doctor's gonna have to write a narrative report called Report of Consequential Injury. And in that report, explain how, as a result of the torn meniscus in one knee, you've now got problems in the other leg. And use a specific diagnosis to describe the other leg. APW has 14 days to file grievance. Omar, thank you. Hey, see that's what I'm talking about. You asked this union stuff, we've got plenty of union folks on here. We're gonna get some answers. So thank you for the answer, Omar. Let's see what other questions we got. How long can someone collect OWCP? I've seen someone, the longest I've seen is 14 years. It just depends on your situation, but there's not a cutoff. There's no time that says you've been here so long, you can't have it anymore. It doesn't really work that way. It really depends on injury severity, progress toward goals, and so forth. I fell in 2011 but have a torn rotator cuff, which doctors said it happened when I fell. They're denying payment. Nadine, why don't you send us a private message on Facebook and give us some more details? I don't know when you reported your injury. You only have three years to report it. So if you fell in 2011 and you didn't report till say 2015, they're gonna deny everything because you only have three years to report injuries. So we need more information on that. Michael's got a question on a CA2. He's documented back issues prior to joining the post office. Pre-existing issues are covered. I got five years in now, and the back issues have started to flare up, and it got worse last week. I've gone once to my chosen orthopedic doctor. Doctor agrees that the job makes it flare up. Does CA2 potentially cover this problem? And you're in Austin, Texas. Yes. Michael, OWCP will cover injuries or conditions that are pre-existing but are exacerbated by the job. You just need your doctor, find an OWCP doctor, by the way, to write a narrative explaining how your job has exacerbated your pre-existing condition, and that should be covered. That is by the book. Nancy said, document every time they harass and always have a witness. Exactly what I'm saying. Document and get a witness. Monica, I'm a union member, and you seem so proud to say that. I'm proud of you for being a union member. Everybody should be. Tammy, does OWCP pay gas miles for you to go to the doctor? Yes. Get an OWCP 957 form. They'll pay up to 100 miles round trip. Only if your claim's accepted. Liz wants to know: is the schedule award the same for each body part? I had a shoulder replacement. No, ma'am. It is different for every body part. There's a different number of weeks in the schedule depending on your injury. So you have to check that out. If you want to know for sure, go to Google and search OWCP Schedule Award chart. You'll find it. CJ wants to know if she files a new grievance after filing an initial grievance for the light duty request that they're not adhering to. I don't know. You've got one grievance. What was the outcome of that one? I'll probably need some more guidance. That's a union question. But if anybody would like to respond to CJ on that, please do. Laura said, I have had two surgeries in the last nine months, knee replacement. I feel the doctor is not doing his utmost best, and still walking with a walker. Can I change doctors? You can change doctors. You need to have a really good reason. Write a letter to DOL to your claims examiner and let them know what doctor you want to switch to and give your reason why. And they'll either approve or deny it. But you definitely can. The other thing you can do is ask your doctor to write a referral to another doctor. Pam wants to know is it true that there's no schedule of war for spine? That is true unless you have symptoms radiating down to your in your limbs, and then that may be able to be covered. Michael, you're welcome. Mike has a form for management being aggressive. Yeah, hey, you might want to share that, Mike. Yeah, Mike says if you don't win the grievance, you can go to arbitration if you're with the union. Your union will go to arbitration on your behalf. Can you claim back pay? I've been going for over a year now. Yeah, Tammy, just get a CA7 and fill that out. I check off the correct boxes, and maybe a CA7A and a 7B as well. You can get back pay for things that you pay out of your pocket too, with a nine OWCP 915 form. If you paid money out of your own pocket, you can get that back once your claim's accepted. Just like with a 957 form, you can get reimbursed for mileage. What can be done about OWCP denying surgery requests numerous times? Alright, so check this out. Surgery requests are typically denied because the diagnosis does not warrant surgery. The example I always give is the knee. So let's say that your diagnosis is knee sprain. Knee sprains don't require surgery. Let's say it's ankle sprain. Ankle sprains don't require surgery. But what if you have a torn ligament? Your doctor's got to get the torn ligament approved so that DOL will approve the surgery. The diagnosis has got to warrant surgery. Be sure that your diagnosis that's approved is one that would warrant surgery. If not, have the doctor write a diagnosis expansion report, adding the correct diagnosis to your claim. All right, we've gotten to the end of the questions. Let me just reiterate the reason we do this, for those of you that are new or for those of you that have been on a few times and aren't really understanding yet what we're trying to accomplish here. We're trying to get the word out on how to handle an OWCP claim, what to do when you're injured, how to combat supervisors that are combative, you know, how to protect your rights, how to gain access to all your benefits. And the best way to get this out is for all of you to tell all of your friends, let your coworkers know that we're doing this. We do it every Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern time, 8 p.m. Central. If for some reason we can't at that time, we'll let you know that we're changing the time. We've done that before. But typically it's at this time slot every week on Wednesday nights. And we're just trying to get the word out. There's nothing in it for us to do this. We are literally here just wanting to help you. And there's not a day that goes by that we don't get a phone call from somebody that's crying, that's in financial distress, that they're emotionally distressed, they're scared to lose their job, they're scared to lose their house. And those are things we're just trying to help you avoid. We want to help you avoid that. Disability, we want to help you avoid bankruptcy. This is a real problem. We have people that are worried about losing their house. For God's sake, this is not fair. And so we're trying to help you when you get injured at work. We want to help you know what to do before you get injured at work. And so please do us a favor. Pass the word on. Don't do me a favor. Actually, it doesn't help me. I'm not a federal employee. Do your co-workers a favor. Pass the word on that we're doing this. Let everyone know to come to this page. This video is going to be here forever. And so they can go on tomorrow and watch this video. You can go to the video from three or four weeks ago where we had 23,000 views where I took the supervisors out behind the woodshed. That was a fun one. And we're talking about all kinds of topics related to OWCP. If you've got a topic you want us to discuss, send us a message and we'll add that to the list, and we'll it'll be something that we do in a coming week, probably even that same week. We're just here to help. We love federal employees. We're passionate about helping you. There's nothing that I like better than to see a new claim get approved. And that's a big deal to us. No more denied claims is not a motto. It's a mission statement. And it's our mission for every federal employee nationwide. We've got doctors in certain areas. We've got a couple of offices in Alabama and Montgomery and Birmingham. We've got an office in Clearwater, Florida. We've got offices in Massachusetts, in Quincy, and Norwood and Wolburn. And in addition to that, we've trained doctors all around the country in Wisconsin, Indiana, Chicago, Arizona, Maryland, North Carolina. Go am I missing. Virginia, that's seven states. California, they dropped out. Sorry, California, don't get your hopes up. They dropped out. It's hard, okay? I'm probably missing somebody. I've been training doctors for nearly four years. In total, we've trained nearly 25 offices around the country so that as a federal employee, you have somebody that you can go to get help and get your claim approved. And so we're passionate about it. This is all we do every day in and day out. We go and teach this stuff. We go to conventions, state conventions. We're looking forward to the invite to the Rural Carrier National Convention in August. I'm counting on it. I don't, I can't think of one good reason that I shouldn't be there. It's in my backyard. And nobody loves federal employees more than I do. And nobody wants to help more than I'm going to help. I'm looking forward to seeing you all at upcoming conventions. I'm going to end the way I began. Get Twitter. Dang it. Get Twitter. I've got 361 followers now. I was hoping to be at 400. Go to Twitter and follow us at the at sign at Fed Injury Center. At Fed Injury Center. I want you to go to work tomorrow. Take your best friend's phone from them. Get Twitter and go through the steps for them because they're probably not going to know how to do it themselves. Make it happen. Don't let anybody go without this information. And on Twitter, I am not telling you who my favorite football team is. Well, I want to win the championship. I'm not going to talk about the U.S. women's team 13 goals. I'm not going to post pictures of my food. I'm just going to talk about OWCP laws, rules, and regulations. It's going to be extremely useful. It will not be a waste of time. You can't go without it. We had somebody who was in front of their supervisor, and the supervisor said, Yeah, you're following a work injury. You're fired. And they said, I don't think so. What does it say here that you can't fire me for following a work injury? And they said, Oh, yeah, I wasn't really going to fire you. I was just upset. You damn you're not, okay? Nobody's getting fired today. And that's what you get if you're following me on Twitter because you have these rules, these laws, regulations, and they're right there at your fingertips. Nobody can hose you if you can show the law. Okay? You can't get screwed over if you protect yourself. And so I'm putting this stuff out there in an effort to help you protect you. Okay? Pass the word along. Next week, let's double the number of people on Wednesday night OWCP chats and let's immediately double the number of people on Twitter. Let's get people following this. Pass the word along, okay? Let people know what's going on. And last but not least, everybody take a minute, go to federal injurycenters.com, click on the OWCP forms tab, and go print a CA10 and take it to work and post it on your bulletin board. Do these things and eventually we'll get these work injuries accepted. One out of 13 people in 2018 had an accepted claim. That is unacceptable. You can't tolerate this anymore. You cannot take it. All right. So here we are teaching it. Take the information and pass it on. Hey, this is fun. I was glad to be able to help you again tonight and look forward to seeing you again next week. And I'll be looking forward to seeing you, Florida rural carriers, and Daytona Beach coming up soon. Have a good night. Thanks, everybody.