The Rand Institute for Civil Justice recently released an interim report on its long anticipated evaluation of California’s permanent disability rating schedule.
The authors of the report found that the current system does ensure that the highest compensation goes to the most severely disabled individuals. They acknowledged though that on the surface this sounds good, but that it covers up the fact that there are serious issues of fairness with regard to how different impairments are compensated.
Another finding discussed was that the current system makes is almost impossible for physicians evaluating the same injury to produce similar ratings.
It was noted that one of the key problems with California’s rating system is that it isn’t based on empirical measures of how specific injuries impair the ability to work.
The report explained that moving to an objective system such as the AMA Guides would not by itself eliminate inconsistency. It recommended the consideration of additional methods to improve consistency, such as increased reliance on neutral doctors.
The report also recommend reordering ratings to be consistent with average proportional losses for a particular impairment and said that there would be more discussion about tying ratings to earnings losses when the full report is released in February 2004.
Adjuster / Examiner Claims Examiner Santa Ana Unified School District Santa Ana, CA
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