"Can I see a chiropractor?"

The 24-visit cap

Labor Code § 4604.5(c) caps chiropractic treatment at 24 visits per industrial injury. The same section imposes separate 24-visit caps on physical therapy and on occupational therapy.

They are separate caps, not a shared pool — 24 chiropractic, 24 PT, 24 OT.

The caps are per injury, not per year. Once they are gone, they are gone for that claim.

Two exceptions exist, and one of them is the reason to keep reading.

Post-surgical treatment — § 4604.5(c)(3). The caps do not apply to post-surgical physical medicine and rehabilitation provided under the administrative director's post-surgical treatment utilization schedule. Worth raising specifically if you have had surgery.

And the employer can simply authorize more. Under § 4604.5(c)(2)(A) the employer may authorize additional physical medicine visits in writing, beyond the 24. Nothing stops you from asking, and nobody will offer. If your physician believes more treatment is warranted, have them say so in the request and ask the claims administrator directly for written authorization beyond the cap.

The part that surprises people

Under Labor Code § 4600(c), once the 24 chiropractic visits are used, a chiropractor may not continue as your primary treating physician. The claims administrator can require you to select a different PTP.

Your primary treating physician is the most consequential relationship in your case. That doctor writes the reports that determine your work status, your treatment, and — through the permanent and stationary report — a large part of what your case is worth. Losing that physician mid-case, at the point the case is being valued, is a real setback.

So think about it at visit two, not at visit twenty-three.

How to spend them well

Front-load nothing. Three visits a week for eight weeks uses the entire allotment before anyone has decided what is actually wrong.

Get imaging and a specialist opinion early, so the chiropractic care is treating a diagnosis rather than substituting for one.

Ask what the plan is. A chiropractor who cannot say what the treatment is expected to accomplish and by when is spending a limited resource.

And keep count yourself. Nobody else will tell you when you are at 20.