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For workers

How California workers' compensation benefits are calculated and paid, what the deadlines are, how medical treatment and disputes work, and where to get free help. Every figure is rendered from the state schedule and every rule is cited to the Labor Code.

• How much workers' comp paysCalifornia temporary disability pays two-thirds of your average weekly earnings, between the state minimum and maximum for the year you were hurt. Figures for 2013 to 2026, with a calculator.
• How long benefits lastThe time limits on California workers' comp - 104 weeks of temporary disability within five years, 240 weeks for nine listed conditions, what happens when TD runs out, how long permanent disability is paid, and why medical treatment has no end date.
• Temporary disabilityHow California temporary disability (TD) works - who pays it, when the first check is due, the three-day waiting period, total versus partial, the 10% late-payment increase, how it differs from EDD State Disability Insurance, and when it ends.
• Permanent disabilityHow a California permanent disability rating turns into weeks of payments, the 2013-and-later weeks schedule, the weekly minimum and maximum by year of injury, the 1.4 adjustment, and a calculator.
• SettlementsThe two ways a California workers' comp case settles - stipulations with request for award and compromise and release - what each one gives up, when an offer usually comes, why a judge must approve every settlement, and what happens if there is no agreement.
• Deadlines that matterThe dates that run from a California work injury - 30 days to report, one working day for the claim form, treatment while the claim is pending, the 90-day presumption, the one-year filing deadline and the five-year reopening window - with a calculator that dates them for you.
• How to file a claimStep by step - report the injury, get the DWC-1 claim form from your employer within one working day, fill in the employee section, return it and keep the dated copy, get treatment authorized within one working day, and what delay and denial letters mean.
• Your doctor, the MPN and URWho picks your doctor in a California workers' comp claim, how to predesignate your own physician, how to change doctors inside a medical provider network, what utilization review can and cannot do, the deadlines it works to, and how to appeal a denial through independent medical review.
• QME and AMEWhat a qualified medical evaluator (QME) and an agreed medical evaluator (AME) do in a California workers' comp claim, which disputes go to them, how the three-doctor panel is requested on Form 105 or 106, the 10-day deadlines, and what the report decides.
• SDI and workers' compWhen EDD State Disability Insurance pays alongside a California workers' comp claim - delayed or denied claims, a TD rate lower than the SDI rate, medical-only claims - and how EDD's lien recovers what it paid.
• Stress and psychiatric claimsThe rules that make California psychiatric injury claims different - the diagnosis requirement, the predominant-cause standard, the six-month employment rule and its sudden-and-extraordinary exception, the good-faith personnel action defense, and the post-termination bar.
• Do you need a lawyerWhen California injured workers hire an attorney and when they do not, how the fee works (a judge-approved percentage of the award, nothing paid up front), what the free Information and Assistance officers do, and the disclosure an attorney must give you.
• Find an attorneyAttorney listings by California county, with the DWC district office and Information and Assistance phone for each. Listings are paid advertising; this site is not a lawyer referral service and does not recommend any attorney.
• Attorney directory by county10 counties at launch, with each county's DWC office and free Information and Assistance line.