"How long will this take?"

What actually controls the clock

Your medical condition, more than anything else. A case cannot resolve on permanent disability until you are permanent and stationary — meaning your condition has plateaued. If you need surgery and a year of recovery, that is a year the case cannot end, and no lawyer can compress it.

Whether the claim was accepted. A denial adds months, sometimes more than a year.

Whether treatment gets denied. Each utilization review dispute and IMR appeal has its own cycle. How that works.

The medical-legal evaluation. Obtaining a panel, scheduling the exam, waiting for the report, and — where the report is inadequate — obtaining a supplemental report or taking a deposition. This is frequently the longest stretch in the case. The QME process.

And how many body parts and how much apportionment is in dispute.

The parts with fixed timing

The full timeline, stage by stage.

What makes it take longer than it should

Nobody moving it. Cases sit. A Declaration of Readiness is what forces the calendar, and it can be filed by either side.

An inadequate medical-legal report. A report that does not address a body part, does not explain apportionment, or does not state restrictions specifically has to be fixed — supplemental report, deposition, or a new evaluation — and each of those is months.

Body parts added late. Every addition restarts a piece of the medical development. Why compensable consequences have to be raised early.

And treatment disputes that are never appealed. A denial that sits does not resolve itself.

What you get while you wait

This is the part that matters more than the end date.

Medical treatment — including up to $10,000 while the claim is investigated or denied, under § 5402(c).

Temporary disability every two weeks while you are off work — and a late payment carries an automatic 10% under § 4650(d). More.

Permanent disability advances, once there is a rating basis.

A case taking a long time is not the same as a case where nothing is being paid. If nothing is being paid, that is a separate problem with its own remedies. When nothing is happening.