Nebraska is a state that has a “prompt payment rule” for medical expenses in workers’ compensation cases. This means that so long as your employer has sufficient knowledge that your medical care is necessary because of the injury, your bills should be paid. This is a huge plus because even a minor workers’ compensation injury can cause an employee to rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills.

In Nebraska, delay of medical payment is treated as a denial of a claim. That is why a delay in paying for medical bills from a work injury gives the employee the right to pick their own doctor for a work injury.

The issue of doctor choice brings up a couple of the hidden dangers of the prompt payment rule.  Many times, employers will promptly pay medical expenses for doctors who will oftentimes release employees before they are done healing and return employees back to work before they are ready. Employees need to be able to know their doctor-choice rights before they agree to an employer/insurer-oriented clinic or doctor – especially if that doctor is not their family doctor.

Secondly, employees can get lulled into contentment when an employer pays their medical bills. Medical benefits are one aspect of workers’ compensation benefits; the other is loss of income benefits. An employer/insurer may use their leverage with a doctor to minimize loss of income benefits. Also, when employees get into litigation, they are oftentimes confused by the fact that an employer will pay for medical benefits, but not loss of income benefits, or will deny that the injury is even work related. This is related to the prompt payment rule. Just because an employer pays medical bills, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they or a workers’ compensation judge will believe those medical bills are related to the work accident.