California Workers' Compensation
Impairment-to-Disability Rating

Rating Philosophy and Purpose

Any claims administrator, litigator or even the injured worker is allowed to make a correction to a miscalculated impairment rating when properly supported by the reported findings of the MMI report.

WCAB Blackledge Decision supports the long practice of annotated informal ratings to help identify potential defects in the application of the AMA Guides. 

If the medical evaluator provides a miscalculation of impairment and the body of the medical report supports and includes objective clinical criteria that would support a higher or lower impairment, the AMA Guides allows any knowledgeable observer to adjust the reported impairment accordingly. - AMA Guides, 5th Ed., Chapter 2, page 17.

We are rating determination professionals especially trained in the complexities of both the AMA Guides and the California Workers' Compensation System. We can assist you with your impairment-to-disability rating needs.

It is our responsibility to go beyond the page that provides the AMA Analysis. When requested to provide a Disability Rating, we rate the entire medical report. Not just the physician's impairment assessment.

When we correct the analysis and provide a recommended rating, we stay within the boundaries of the medical report's objective impairment factors, even on those occasions in which we address other impairment factors, tables, etc., completely ignored by the evaluator.

When a basic rating without analysis is requested, we will simply provide a rating of reported impairment, limited to corrections of mathematical or interpolation miscalculations.