[ladyrenee]

I have been dealing with Workman's Comp because of a back injury that I received while at work. I have been seeing a doctor for this now for almost four years. I recently was involved in an auto accident and it aggravated my back injury from the workmans comp case. I have recently found out that one of the doctors that I am seeing for both cases sent my auto accident claim to workman's compensation and now they are refusing to pay for anything that is involved in my back injury claiming that this is now the car insurances' problem. I know that I told the doctors office that this was a separate claim and that this was not to be sent into workmans comp as well as the doctor (I heard him tell the nurse to make sure that this was not for workmans comp.) Now that they have sent a claim for the car accident to my workmans comp worker she is saying that they are no longer liable. I tried telling her that it was just an aggravation of the situatoin and that they should still be responsible. She is now requiring all of the information from the car accident so that she may be able to make a further judgment on the case. But, in the meantime, while I am waiting for her decision, I am ont receiving any benefits from them at all and I can not get my medications or anything until a decision is made. I had to contact the doctors' office that sent the wrong claim in the first place and ask them to send all of the information pertaining to the car accident to my workmans comp worker. They said that they could not send any of that information to them without me signing a release for them to do that. I guess what I am wondering is , if I need to sign a release of information for them to send this information to workmans comp, even though they already sent some of the information to them, is this a violation of my privacy? This has caused a lot of problems for me and workmans comp because I do not have the money to pay for the medications and doctor bills that I will continue to have because of my first injury. Can anyone offer me any advice to this?

[JudyKayTee]

Your medical history is necessary in order to evaluate both of your claims. You must have signed releases for both the WC claim AND the auto claim - or didn't you?

I see no violation (and it's HIPAA, not HIPPA).

If you refuse to sign releases you cannot collect on either claim.

At least that's how it works in NY.

[J_9]

Have you discussed this with your Workers' Comp Attorney?