Milwaukee Employment Law Blog

A disabling injury or medical condition can affect a worker’s ability to continue to work during the lengthy recovery period. Many workers anticipate the potential impact with long-term disability insurance. However, most workers are not familiar with the process of pursuing claims under LTD insurance policies. Medical records are important in LTD claims at every stage of recovery.

In some instances, the insurance company may not seem to agree with a person’s treating doctor. The insurance providers have their own physicians who read the documents provided in the insurance claim. Moreover, the insurance company medical review may include a patient’s entire medical file. Without ever speaking with the patient, the insurance company doctors may decide a condition does not qualify for benefits. Moreover, after initially providing LTD benefits, the insurance companies often decide to terminate benefits, even when the patient’s primary doctor says the person is not yet able to return to work.

Instacart's pitch is simple and appealing: use the company's app on your phone to order groceries, then a "personal shopper" picks up the items from the store and delivers them to your Milwaukee home at a time that's convenient for you. While customers might be pleased with the arrangement, some of Instacart's independent contractors (they're the "personal shoppers") are not as happy.

The company is facing a class-action lawsuit over wages and how its workers are paid. According to a news source, Instacart guarantees workers a minimum of $10 per job, but the lawsuit says the company is offsetting the wages with tips workers receive from customers.

There are no good reasons for supervisors, managers or Human Resources directors to encourage or allow sexual harassment or discrimination based on race, religion, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability or age in the workplace. First and foremost, these behaviors are unlawful. Secondly, they cause real harm to victims.

But those in positions of workplace authority should have selfish reasons for not allowing or encouraging discrimination or harassment: doing so can cause tremendous damage to not only your career, but your financial health as well.

A national pharmacy chain that operates locations throughout Wisconsin has settled a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged the company filled prescriptions without verifying their medical necessity. Medicaid rules require pharmacies to verify medical necessity for certain stimulant medications before seeking reimbursement from the Medicaid program. The rules serve a gatekeeping role to ensure that taxpayer money that is used to purchase prescription drugs only pay for medications that are medically necessary, according to Matthew D. Krueger, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

In the recent lawsuit, workers noted that the pharmacy chain allegedly was not verifying medical necessity for stimulant prescriptions, such as those that are designed to treat such as attention deficient disorder, before seeking funds from Medicaid to pay for the medications.