Stuck With the Network’s Doctor? How the MPN Works

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What an MPN is Who chooses the first doctor Changing doctors inside the network Distance and time: what a network must deliver The medical access assistant, and your call log When you disagree with the network’s doctor The ways out of the network While the claim is undecided A change the state has proposed When you do not need a lawyer for this Key takeaways Frequently asked questions Tell us what happened

In thirty seconds

If your employer has a medical provider network, your treatment generally comes from inside it. It is a list of doctors, not one doctor: after the first visit you may switch to any other doctor in the network without permission.
The network has rules of its own: doctors within a set distance of your home or work, a first appointment within days, a person whose job is to find you one, and a second opinion, a third and an independent review if you disagree.
There are real ways out of the network, such as an emergency, a network that cannot actually give you care, or a review that sides with you. Preferring a different doctor is not one of them.

A warehouse picker in Ontario was sent to a clinic the day after she reported her back. A line cook in Koreatown was handed a printed list of doctors and told to pick one. A school custodian in Downey was told the doctor he had seen for twenty years could not treat his knee, and that the adjuster had found him someone.

Each of them was meeting the same thing, the medical provider network, usually called the MPN. Most workers experience it as being told which doctor they get. That is not quite what it is. A network is a list your employer’s insurer assembled, and inside it the choice of doctor is, after the first visit, yours. The rules that come with it are specific, and most of them run in your favour if you know they exist.

This article explains what an MPN is, who chooses your first doctor, how to change doctors inside the network, the distance and time standards a network has to meet, the person whose job is to find you an appointment, what to do when you disagree with the network’s doctor, the ways out of the network, and a change the state has proposed. It does not tell you whether your own network is meeting its obligations. That depends on your notice, your area and your appointments, which only your file and your call log show.

What an MPN is

A list the insurer assembled, not a doctor it assigned.

A network of doctors. A medical provider network is a group of physicians and other providers that an employer or its insurer has put together and the state has approved. If your employer has one, your treatment for the work injury generally has to come from inside it. Today nearly all employers in the insured market have one.

A list, not a person. The most common mistake is to treat the first doctor as the network. The first doctor is one name on the list. Every other doctor on the list who treats your kind of injury is also available to you, and you do not need anyone’s permission to move to one of them after that first visit.

It comes with paperwork you should have. When you report an injury that the network covers, the employer or insurer must give you a written notice about the MPN. Among other things, the notice must carry:

The network’s identification number, which the doctors you choose also need.
A toll-free number for the network’s medical access assistants, the people whose job is to help you find a doctor and book the appointment.
The web address of the network’s list of treating physicians, and how to get a regional list and the complete directory, in writing or online.
How to choose and change doctors, how to get a specialist, how the second- and third-opinion process works, and how to request an MPN independent medical review.

The notice must be in English, and in Spanish too if Spanish is your primary language. If you never received it, write and ask for it, and keep both your request and whatever comes back. A missing or defective notice can matter later, as the section on the ways out explains.

The MPN: choosing and changing your doctor Medical treatment and the MPN

Who chooses the first doctor

It depends on a form you may have signed before you were hurt.

There are three situations, and which one you are in decides almost everything about your first month of care.

You predesignated your own doctor. The law lets you name your personal physician in advance, and if you did it properly, you treat with that doctor from the date of injury, network or no network. Every one of the requirements had to be true before you were hurt:

Written notice to your employer, before the injury, naming your personal doctor. DWC Form 9783 is the form made for it.
Health coverage for non-work injuries on the date of injury, from a health plan or another qualifying source.
A personal physician, meaning your regular doctor, who has directed your treatment before and keeps your records.
The doctor’s agreement, in advance, to treat you for a work injury.
Proof it reached the employer before the injury. Keep a dated copy.

There is no cure for missing it after the fact. If you are reading this before an injury and you have a doctor you trust, it is the most valuable form in the system.

Your employer has an MPN, and you did not predesignate. The employer or insurer arranges your first evaluation with a doctor in the network. That first visit is theirs to arrange. After it, the choice of doctor inside the network is yours.

Your employer has no MPN. Then older and more generous rules apply. The employer controls your medical care for the first 30 days after you report the injury. You may ask for one change of doctor during that time, and the claims administrator must give you an alternative within five working days. After the 30 days, you may treat with a doctor of your own choice within a reasonable geographic area.

THE 30 DAYS ARE NOT WHAT PEOPLE THINK

“You can choose your own doctor after 30 days” is true only where there is no network. Inside an MPN the clock does not set you free; the switching right does, and it starts after the first visit, not after a month.

Figure 1. Who chooses your treating doctor, as a table of three cases: if you predesignated your doctor before the injury, your own doctor from the date of injury; if your employer has an MPN, the employer arranges the first visit and after it you choose any doctor in the network; if there is no MPN, the employer controls the first 30 days from the report, and after them a doctor of your choice.

Changing doctors inside the network

The right almost nobody uses.

After the first visit, you choose. The law requires the employer to tell you of “the employee’s right to change treating physicians within the network after the first visit.” There is no form to file, no reason to give and no one to ask. You pick another doctor in the network, by specialty or by experience with your kind of injury, and you make the appointment.

The adjuster’s suggestion is a suggestion. An adjuster who steers you toward a particular doctor is not giving you a requirement. Any physician in the network who treats your injury is open to you.

Your records follow you. Since April 1, 2026, the claims administrator must send the treating doctor you select your medical records, the network’s identification number and where to send treatment requests and bills, within 20 days of learning whom you chose. A doctor who starts without your file is a doctor who starts from your memory.

Why you might switch. Not every reason is about bedside manner. Your treating doctor writes the reports your claim is built on: the first report, the progress reports, and in time the report that says your condition has stabilized. Those reports set your work status and your restrictions, and they feed your rating. A doctor whose care is fine but whose reports are thin can still hurt your case. That is a legitimate reason to change.

Specialists count too. If your injury calls for a specialist, you may ask for one inside the network who is appropriate for it. If your treating doctor refers you to a kind of specialist the network does not include, you may choose that specialist from outside it.

Before you switch, ask the new office whether it is taking new workers’ compensation patients in your network. Some practices decline the work, a business decision about billing and not a statement about your claim. A switch does not restart your claim or erase what the earlier doctor wrote; it changes who treats you from here.

An MPN is a list, not a person, and after the first visit the choice of doctor on that list is yours.

No doctor will take my case Can I get a second opinion?

Distance and time: what a network must deliver

Real doctors, near you, soon.

A network is not allowed to be a directory of names. The regulations set standards it has to meet, and they are measured from where you live or where you work.

Distance.

Primary treating physicians: within 30 minutes or 15 miles. The network must have at least three available primary treating physicians within that reach, and emergency care too.
Occupational health specialists and other specialists: within 60 minutes or 30 miles.

A network covering an area where doctors are genuinely scarce can apply for an alternative standard, and the state must approve it first. Los Angeles County is not that.

Time.

A first visit within 3 business days of your telling a medical access assistant that you need treatment.
A first specialist appointment within 20 business days of the referral.

If the medical access assistant cannot schedule a timely appointment with an appropriate specialist, the employer must let you get the necessary treatment from an appropriate specialist outside the network.

Available means available. A doctor counts toward these standards only if he or she is actually seeing new workers’ compensation patients. A directory full of doctors who retired, moved, stopped taking the work or never joined is not a network that meets the standard.

Figure 2. The access standards, measured from your home or your workplace: two rings drawn to scale in miles, 15 miles for a primary treating physician and emergency care and 30 miles for a specialist, with their drive times, 30 and 60 minutes; and beside them the two time limits as a table, a first visit within 3 business days and a first specialist appointment within 20.

If you were sent an hour and a half away. A doctor who is far outside the distance standard, while you live in a dense part of Southern California, is worth questioning. Ask the medical access assistant for a doctor inside the standard, in writing, and keep the answer.

Travel is paid regardless. Mileage to and from treatment is reimbursed at the rate in effect on the day you travel: 76¢ a mile for trips on or after July 1, 2026, and 72.5¢ for trips before that in 2026. Parking counts. Keep a log as you go, because mileage reconstructed a year later is what adjusters reject most.

They sent me to a doctor far away The mileage rate changed mid-year

The medical access assistant, and your call log

The person whose job is to find you a doctor.

Every network must have them. The medical access assistants are the network’s staff for helping you find an available doctor and schedule the appointment. Their toll-free number is on the MPN notice.

When they answer. They must be based in the United States and available at least Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific time, in English and in Spanish. There must be enough of them to respond to calls, faxes and messages by the next day, not counting Sundays and holidays.

Use them, and keep the record. Either the assistant solves the problem, or the assistant’s failure documents that the network cannot. Both outcomes are useful. Write down:

The date and time of each call or message.
Who you spoke to, and what you asked for.
What they offered: the doctor, the address, the appointment date.
Each refusal, from the network or from an office: “not taking new patients”, “no appointment for six weeks”, “we don’t do workers’ comp”.

The directory has to be current. The network must update its provider listings at least every three months. If the list you were given is stale, call the offices on it and log what they say. Three or four documented calls that went nowhere are evidence of an access problem. An impression that the network is bad is not.

KEEP A CALL LOG FROM THE FIRST DAY

A documented access problem is worth far more than an undocumented one. If missed or impossible appointments are keeping you from treatment, say so in writing to the adjuster and keep the copy.

When you disagree with the network’s doctor

A second opinion, a third, and then a review.

Switching doctors is for when you want someone else to treat you. The dispute process is for when you and your treating doctor disagree about the diagnosis or the treatment plan. It runs inside the network, in steps.

Ask for a second opinion. Tell the person the employer or insurer has designated that you dispute the diagnosis or treatment and want another opinion. You may do it orally or in writing. You will be given a list of network doctors in an appropriate specialty, and you choose one.
Make the appointment within 60 days of receiving that list. This deadline is the one that catches people. If you do not make the appointment in time, you are treated as having given up the second opinion for that dispute.
Ask for a third opinion if you still disagree. It works the same way, with the same 60 days.
Request an MPN independent medical review if, after the third opinion, the treatment or test is still disputed. The application is a one-page form from the state, with a release for your medical records.

The reports have deadlines too. A second- or third-opinion doctor must serve a written opinion within 20 days of the appointment or of receiving the test results, whichever is later. If that doctor recommends the treatment, you may get it by changing to that doctor, or to another doctor in the network.

The review is quick. The independent reviewer’s findings are due within 30 days of the examination, and within three days where the reviewer certifies in writing that there may be an imminent and serious threat to your health.

And it can open the door. Where the review finds the disputed treatment consistent with the rules, the law is plain: “the injured employee may seek the disputed treatment or diagnostic service from a physician of his or her choice from within or outside the medical provider network,” and “the employer shall be liable for the cost.” A worker who works the process and wins is no longer confined to the network for that treatment.

Figure 3. The dispute process inside an MPN, as four steps on one rail: a second opinion, with 60 days to make the appointment; a third opinion, with the same 60 days; an MPN independent medical review, with findings within 30 days of the examination, or three if there may be a serious threat to health; and, if the review sides with you, the disputed treatment from a doctor of your choice inside or outside the network, at the employer’s cost.

This is not utilization review. The two systems are confused constantly, and the confusion costs people their deadlines.

The MPN process settles which doctor’s opinion governs when you disagree with your network doctor about a diagnosis or a treatment plan.
Utilization review, and then IMR, decide whether a specific treatment your doctor requested is medically necessary. A utilization review denial is appealed through IMR, within 30 days of the decision, or 10 if the dispute is only over drugs on the state’s drug list.

If you received a letter denying a treatment your doctor asked for, you are in the second system, and the MPN process will not fix it.

Treatment denied? Utilization review and IMR, step by step How independent medical review works

The ways out of the network

Real exits, and one that is not.

Figure 4. The ways out of an MPN: an emergency; a claim the employer has denied; a missing or defective MPN notice that led to a denial of care; a network that cannot provide a doctor or an appointment within its standards; a valid predesignation; an MPN independent medical review that sides with you; and, for an injury from before the network covered you, continuity of care. Drawn apart, and dim, the one that is not a way out: preferring a different doctor.

An emergency. Always. Emergency care can come from any provider or hospital, in or out of the network.

A denied claim. If the employer denies the claim, it is not directing your care. You treat where you can, usually through your own health insurance, while the claim is fought.

A notice that was missing, and cost you care. In Knight v. United Parcel Service, an en banc decision of the Appeals Board in 2006, the Board held that an employer’s failure to give proper MPN notice can cost it control of your treatment where the failure led to a neglect or refusal to provide care. Reforms in 2012 narrowed this: a technical defect alone is no longer automatically enough. The question is whether the defect actually kept you from treatment.

A network that cannot deliver. No appropriate specialist, no available appointment within the required times, no usable list. The network must have a written policy letting you get the necessary treatment outside it when it cannot provide that treatment within its own standards. This is where your call log matters.

A valid predesignation, made before the injury.

After a successful MPN independent medical review, for the disputed treatment.

Continuity of care, for an injury that came first. If you were already being treated outside a network for an injury from before the network covered you, you are not always moved into it. The employer or insurer must authorize completion of treatment with your doctor in four situations:

An acute condition, for as long as it lasts.
A serious chronic condition, for up to a year, to finish an approved course of treatment and arrange a transfer.
A terminal illness, for as long as it lasts.
A surgery or procedure the insurer authorized as part of a documented course of treatment, recommended to happen within 180 days of the date the network’s coverage began.

Not a way out: preferring a different doctor. Simply wanting your own doctor, without one of the exits above, is not a basis for leaving the network. Anyone who tells you otherwise sets you up for unpaid bills.

DO NOT LEAVE THE NETWORK ON A HUNCH

Treatment outside the network without one of these exits may not be paid. If you believe the network has failed you, document it first, then ask for the outside care in writing.

While the claim is undecided

Treatment does not wait for the decision.

The first $10,000. Within one working day after you file a claim form, the employer must authorize treatment, up to $10,000, and it continues until the claim is accepted or rejected. Where there is a network, that treatment comes from network providers.

A gap in treatment costs you twice. Going untreated while you sort out a network problem is used against you later, on whether the injury happened at work, on your credibility and on your permanent disability. If the network cannot get you seen, keep looking for care and keep the record.

Your own insurance can bridge. If comp is denied or stalled, your health insurance can pay in the meantime, subject to a possible lien against your recovery. That is a manageable problem. Being untreated is not.

What else the system owes you. An interpreter at medical appointments, at no cost to you, and travel costs for treatment. And you may always see a doctor of your choosing at your own expense; that report can be used as evidence, though it cannot be the only basis for an award.

What treatment you are owed

A change the state has proposed

Not the law yet.

On October 23, 2026, the Division of Workers’ Compensation gave notice of a public hearing on changes to the MPN regulations, set for December 11, 2026, with written comments accepted until that day. Among the proposed changes:

Provider directories on the network’s website in a form that does not require a password.
Clearer rules for what a directory listing must contain.
Guidance on telehealth and remote services, and how they fit the access standards.
Clearer confidentiality rules for the MPN complaint process.

These are proposals. Nothing in them changes your rights today, and they may change before they are adopted or not be adopted at all. This article describes the rules in force on the day it was reviewed, and will be revised when the new rules take effect.

When you do not need a lawyer for this

Most network problems are fixed with a phone call.

Switching to another doctor in the network costs nothing and needs no one’s permission. Neither does calling the medical access assistant, asking for a current directory, or asking for a second opinion. If the first doctor was rushed or wrong for your injury, the fix is usually to choose another one, and you can do that yourself this week. The state’s Information and Assistance officers also answer questions about workers’ compensation at no cost.

Some answers will not change, and it is better to hear them now. If your employer has a network and you did not predesignate, you will not be able to keep seeing your own doctor at the insurer’s expense just because you prefer that doctor. A lawyer cannot make that rule go away.

A consultation is worth having when the network cannot get you seen and your log shows it, when you were never given the notice and it cost you care, when a second-opinion deadline is close, when the dispute has reached independent review, or when treatment your doctor requested was denied. Those are the situations where the rules have deadlines and exits, and a missed one is hard to get back. A consultation with this office costs nothing, and if there is nothing worth doing, we will tell you that.

When you don’t need a lawyer, and what changes the answer

A file to keep on your treatment:

The MPN notice — With the network’s ID number, the access assistants’ number and the directory’s web address.
Any predesignation — A copy of DWC Form 9783, if you filed one before the injury.
The call log — Every call to the access assistant and to doctors’ offices, with the date, the name and the answer.
Each doctor you saw — Who, when, and whether you chose them or were sent.
Opinion requests — The date you asked for a second or third opinion, and the date you received the list.
Letters about treatment — Any denial, any utilization review decision, any review findings.
The mileage log — Every trip, with the date, the place and the round-trip miles.

Key takeaways

The network is a list, not a doctor. If your employer has an MPN, you treat inside it, but after the first visit you may switch to any doctor in it without permission.
A network has standards. A primary doctor within 15 miles or 30 minutes, a specialist within 30 miles or 60 minutes, a first visit within 3 business days, and people whose job is to book it.
Disagreeing has steps. A second opinion, a third, then an MPN independent medical review, with 60 days to make each opinion appointment.
There are real ways out. An emergency, a denied claim, a network that cannot deliver, a notice failure that cost you care, a predesignation, or a review that sides with you.
Keep the record. The notice, a call log and a mileage log turn an access problem into evidence.

Frequently asked questions

Can I see my own doctor for a work injury?

Only if you predesignated that doctor in writing before the injury, your employer has no network and the first 30 days have passed, or one of the exits from the network applies. Otherwise, your treatment comes from inside the MPN.

Can I change doctors in the MPN?

Yes. After the first visit you may switch to any other doctor in the network who treats your injury, without anyone’s permission and without giving a reason.

How far away can the MPN send me?

A primary treating physician should be within 30 minutes or 15 miles of your home or work, and a specialist within 60 minutes or 30 miles. If the network cannot meet that, ask the medical access assistant in writing and keep the answer.

What is a medical access assistant?

The network’s staff for finding you an available doctor and booking the appointment. They must be reachable at least Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific time, in English and Spanish.

I disagree with my MPN doctor. What do I do?

Ask for a second opinion, then a third, then an MPN independent medical review. Make each opinion appointment within 60 days of getting the list, or that step is lost for the dispute.

Is the MPN process the same as appealing a treatment denial?

No. A denial of treatment your doctor requested is utilization review, and it is appealed through IMR within 30 days of the decision. The MPN process settles disagreements with your network doctor.

Sources

Labor Code § 4600§ 4600(c)§ 4600(d)§§ 4616–4616.7§ 4616.3§ 4616.4§ 5402(c)§ 4610.58 CCR § 9767.5§ 9767.6§ 9767.7§ 9767.9§ 9767.12§ 9781§ 9783Knight v. United Parcel Service (WCAB en banc, 2006)DIR News Release 2026-89 (October 23, 2026), notice of public hearing on the Medical Provider Network regulations, 8 CCR §§ 9767.1–9767.19DWC Newsline 2026-60 (mileage).

General information about California law, not legal advice about your case.

Reviewed by Jamey Teitell, Partner & Trial Attorney · Last reviewed October 28, 2026

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Printed from https://www.solovteitell.com/articles/your-doctor-and-the-mpn/ · Last reviewed October 28, 2026