The seriously flawed Senate Bill 1407 (“SB 1407”) advancing through the state Legislature would give the state and its political subdivisions (“government”) the power to direct and control over which doctors treat public servants for their work-related injuries.
If passed, SB 1407 fundamentally alters the rights of public servants to receive medical care from their own doctors, including doctors they are currently seeing for their industrial injuries. SB 1407 fails to protect our injured public servants because it:
1) Forces public employees to see doctors on a list created by their governmental employers with no guarantee that the list will be composed of doctors from different health care groups of that the doctor will be conveniently located near the injured worker’s residence.
2) Postpones critical issues like the selection of doctors on the list, the establishment of “service” areas of the doctors, and the establishment of the appeals process to a panel that is solely selected by the Chairman of the Industrial Commission and is skewed in favor of governmental employers.
3) Disturbs the medical care of currently recovering injured public servants because the law has no “grandfather clause” for workers injured before the effective date of December 1, 2017.
4) Creates an unworkable appeals process for change of doctor requests for firefighters and public safety employees.
State lawmakers listen to constituents who contact them directly. To voice your opposition to SB 1407, contact your state representatives and tell them that you oppose SB 1407. If you don’t know your state representatives, you can find them at: azredistricting.org . If you do know your state representatives, you can find contact information at www.azleg.gov/memberroster/ .