Tell me you’ve never had to deal with SAIF without telling me you’ve never had to deal with SAIF. Nonprofit insurance companies are still insurance companies and they aren’t your friend under any circumstances. The going advice in Oregon is to hire a lawyer as soon as you can when dealing with SAIF because they are set up to filter out anyone who won’t fight as hard as they can for the benefits they’ve paid into.
God help you if you have a mental health claim, SAIF will tear into your life as deeply as they can to find a reason to not pay for a therapist. Those bloodsuckers wanted ALL of my medical records going back to childhood when I wanted to talk to a counselor after I saw my coworker get badly injured on the job and they told me it would take at least 6 months to accept or deny my claim, even though Oregon law says they only have 60 days to do it. Lawyers told me that even though I was right, Oregon workers comp is tilted so far away from the worker that it wasn’t worth their time, since they only get paid if they make SAIF accept a claim they had previously denied.
Gotta admit I can’t argue here, I only briefly had to deal with SAIF for a pretty minor on the job injury that did not result in any paid time loss and I barely had to think about it, just went to the doctor and didn’t pay anything a few times. Easy to imagine that experience is not universal to more serious issues.
Tell me you’ve never had to deal with SAIF without telling me you’ve never had to deal with SAIF. Nonprofit insurance companies are still insurance companies and they aren’t your friend under any circumstances. The going advice in Oregon is to hire a lawyer as soon as you can when dealing with SAIF because they are set up to filter out anyone who won’t fight as hard as they can for the benefits they’ve paid into.
God help you if you have a mental health claim, SAIF will tear into your life as deeply as they can to find a reason to not pay for a therapist. Those bloodsuckers wanted ALL of my medical records going back to childhood when I wanted to talk to a counselor after I saw my coworker get badly injured on the job and they told me it would take at least 6 months to accept or deny my claim, even though Oregon law says they only have 60 days to do it. Lawyers told me that even though I was right, Oregon workers comp is tilted so far away from the worker that it wasn’t worth their time, since they only get paid if they make SAIF accept a claim they had previously denied.
Gotta admit I can’t argue here, I only briefly had to deal with SAIF for a pretty minor on the job injury that did not result in any paid time loss and I barely had to think about it, just went to the doctor and didn’t pay anything a few times. Easy to imagine that experience is not universal to more serious issues.