Howdy, this is Kim Wyatt and i’m the managing attorney of the Work Comp Department here at Bailey & Galyen.
Currently benefit review conferences are being held by Zoom. It looks like it’s going to be this way for awhile. The legislature has decided to keep it this way. So a lot of your BRC’s, they are more of a mediation type so if you have not done a BRC yet they are fact finding, question answer session that allows both parties to answer and ask questions to get more information. It is done by Zoom and you have the option of joining via Zoom video or Zoom audio whichever you prefer.
Usually the benefit review officer will ask you if it’s okay to proceed if you are not attending by video. That’s where we are right now.
As far as contested case hearings which is the next stage going forward those are live for now. The Fort Worth office that used to be near 820 and 30 has has moved it’s now in Euless, Texas which is right off of 183. Very nice office building now. The Dallas office is on Mockingbird near 35 and these are the closest ones around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. You will have to attend live, they do have partitions between the claimant, the attorneys, the insurance carrier and you come in and sit in your little plexiglass cubicle area and you can perform your hearing.
For now contested case hearings will continue live in person. Many of my client’s don’t realize that. They assume that since they attended the BRC by Zoom that it’s also by Zoom. We do make sure that they are instructed to show up in person. But if you ever have any questions ya know, you get a BRC and you’re going to a contested case hearing call our office so we can go over the issues with you to see if it’s something we can assist you with. The problem is sometimes people wait the eve of the contested case hearing to tell everyone i’m going to look for an attorney.
By then there’s not much we’re going to be able to do to change the direction of your case it’s already going towards wherever it’s going so try to get a hold of an attorney or the ombudsman and see where you are in your benefit review conference before going to a CCH. Give us a call hopefully we can review it and see what is going on with your case and better instruct you. Thank you.
