My apologies to everyone for missing last week. As many of you know, the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Educational Association held its annual conference last week from April 19-21 in Biloxi, MS. This three day event is held annually and serves several purposes. There are speakers who present on a variety of topics and you are able to receive your continuing educational hours (if needed), while also having the opportunity to meet with those you work with in a much more casual atmosphere.

    The conference for me started with a round of golf at one of the nicest, if not the nicest, course in MS, Fallen Oak. I was paired with Bryan Bridges, Andrew Burkes, John Stomps and riders Barbie Correll and Josh Heffinger. We did not technically “win” according to the rules of “golf”, but we had the most fun.

    As a workers’ compensation attorney, one of the topics that has aided in my follicle impairment is a Medicare Set-Aside (MSA). When do we need an MSA? When does Medicare need to approve of our MSA? What if Medicare changes the amount of our MSA? If you work in the business, these are questions you have certainly asked yourself at one time or another.

    Before getting too far into the weeds of an MSA, the first topic we need to discuss is what exactly an MSA is. It is simply a projection of anticipated medical needs for an injured claimant for purposes of protecting Medicare’s interests. In essence, Medicare does not want to pay for medical treatment for an injured claimant that the workers’ compensation insurance company should be paying for. We hire third party vendors to prepare these MSA’s for us which try to accurately predict the amount of medical treatment needed throughout an injured employee’s life and pay that amount to the injured employee so that Medicare is not stuck holding a bill for medical treatment for those services rendered.