"Do I have to go to their clinic?"

The first 30 days

If you did not predesignate, the employer controls your medical care for the first 30 days after you report the injury.

"The company clinic" is usually an occupational medicine practice with a contract. That does not make its findings binding, and it does not make it your permanent treating physician.

After 30 days — the right nobody uses

You may change treating physicians within the MPN after the first visit, and you do not need anyone's approval.

The employer must give you access to a current MPN provider list. Ask in writing. A network that cannot produce accessible, available providers has a problem.

How the MPN works.

At the clinic, whatever you think of it

Name every body part that hurts. A body part not mentioned early becomes a fight later.

Describe the mechanism accurately, including if it developed over time.

Say what you cannot do at home, not only at work — several impairment methods are driven entirely by activities-of-daily-living loss.

Do not minimize. "I'm fine" is a reflex and it ends up in the record as a finding.

And do not accept a return-to-work release you cannot actually perform without saying so — in writing, specifically. More.

The exceptions that let you out of the network

Emergency care — always. Defective or missing MPN notice. Failure of access — no appropriate specialist, no available appointment within the required timeframes. A valid predesignation. And after a successful MPN independent medical review, under § 4616.4, where you may treat "from a physician of his or her choice from within or outside the medical provider network" at the employer's expense.

And the form that would have prevented all of this

§ 4600(d) predesignation — DWC Form 9783 — only works if every requirement was met before the injury. Requirements.

If you are reading this and you are not currently injured: file it today.