CRPS Workers’ Comp Claims: Permanent Disability, Settlements, and How Insurers Fight These Cases
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is one of the most mishandled conditions we see in Colorado workers’ compensation law. Insurers deny it. Adjusters minimize it. And injured workers end up bearing the cost of a disease that medicine has recognized for decades.
If you or someone you love was just diagnosed with CRPS after a workplace accident, read this carefully. What you do in the next few weeks will determine the outcome of your entire claim.
What Is CRPS?
CRPS is a chronic, progressive pain condition that develops after an injury. The defining feature is pain dramatically disproportionate to whatever triggered it – a sprained wrist, a fracture from a fall, a soft tissue injury that looked minor on the intake form. Weeks later, the patient is barely able to function, and no standard imaging test explains why.
There are two recognized types of CRPS. Type I (formerly called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy or RSD) occurs without a confirmed nerve injury – this is the form most common in workplace cases. Type II (historically called causalgia) is linked to a confirmed nerve injury. Both types produce the same range of symptoms and the same legal challenges.
Symptoms include severe burning pain in the affected limb, swelling and joint stiffness, extreme sensitivity to touch or temperature, skin color and texture changes, and progressive loss of strength. The psychological impact is equally disabling: depression, anxiety, and PTSD are well-documented complications of long-term CRPS.
For answers to your questions, call:
(303) 999-9999
CRPS Workers’ Comp: How the Condition Connects to Your Claim
At Boesen Law, we see CRPS workers’ comp cases arise from slip-and-fall accidents on job sites, machinery and equipment injuries, car accidents while working or making deliveries, repetitive strain from warehouse or assembly-line work, and construction site falls.
The injury that triggers CRPS does not have to be severe. A seemingly minor sprain or soft tissue injury is legitimately capable of triggering a full CRPS response. The insurer’s argument that the original injury was “not serious enough” to justify your current symptoms is not medicine – it is a legal strategy. We counter it with specialist testimony and peer-reviewed literature.
Is CRPS a Permanent Disability?
This is the question we are asked most often, and the answer matters enormously for how we build your case.
Yes – CRPS is a permanent disability in the majority of workers’ compensation cases we handle. Once the condition reaches maximum medical improvement (MMI), Colorado’s workers’ compensation system requires an impairment rating based on American Medical Association guidelines. That rating determines your permanent disability benefits.
CRPS is particularly complicated to rate accurately because it affects multiple body systems simultaneously – the nervous system, the musculoskeletal system, and psychological function can all be impaired at once. Getting a fair CRPS disability rating requires a physician with genuine, specific experience with this condition. A general IME doctor who has evaluated two CRPS cases in ten years is not that physician.
CRPS may also qualify as a disability under Social Security standards. If it prevents you from sustaining any gainful employment, a Social Security Disability claim can run concurrently with your workers’ compensation case. The two systems have coordination rules, but they can operate together.
CRPS Workers’ Comp Settlement: What These Cases Are Actually Worth
Every worker with a serious CRPS diagnosis wants to understand what their case is worth. We give every client an honest answer: there is no meaningful average CRPS workers’ comp settlement that applies to any individual situation.
Factors that determine your CRPS workers’ comp settlement value
- Severity and progression of the condition at the time of settlement
- Which body parts are affected and how critical they are to your occupation
- Your age and pre-injury wage
- Whether the condition has stabilized or is still advancing
- The quality and completeness of your medical documentation
- Projected lifetime costs for treatment: spinal cord stimulation, nerve blocks, ketamine infusions, psychological care
Early offers from insurers do not reflect the true value of CRPS workers’ comp cases. Signing an early settlement permanently forfeits your right to compensation for future medical costs and lost earning capacity. The CRPS workers’ comp settlements we negotiate for clients reflect the full picture – current and projected future medical needs, permanent work restrictions, lost wages, and long-term prognosis. That number is always substantially larger than what an adjuster offers in the first weeks after diagnosis.
CRPS Treatment: What Colorado Workers Are Entitled To
Colorado workers’ compensation law covers medical treatment that is “reasonable and necessary” for a work-related condition. For CRPS, that can be extensive:
Physical and occupational therapy · Pain management medications including nerve stabilizers · Sympathetic nerve blocks and injections · Spinal cord stimulation (covered when conservative treatment has failed) · Ketamine infusion therapy · Psychological counseling · Surgical intervention when other options are exhausted.
Insurers routinely challenge the necessity and cost of every item on that list. They will require you to see their preferred providers, dispute whether individual procedures are medically necessary, and look for any gap in your treatment history to argue you are not as impaired as you claim.
CRPS Life Expectancy and the Long-Term Reality of Your Claim
CRPS itself is not a fatal condition. But that framing misses what matters for your case. CRPS life expectancy concerns are really questions about quality of life over time.
Without early and aggressive treatment, CRPS progresses and spreads. What began in one hand or one foot can involve the entire limb – and in some cases, beyond. Workers who receive inadequate early treatment, or who settle their claims too quickly, often face decades of uncompensated medical costs. Insurers know this. Their goal, from the first denial letter, is to close your case before that long-term picture becomes clear.
How Insurers Fight CRPS Workers’ Comp Claims
CRPS insurance denial is not the exception in Colorado. It is standard practice. Knowing the strategies insurers use before they deploy them is one of the most valuable things we can offer a newly injured worker.
Strategy 1: Claiming CRPS is Pre-Existing
Insurers search your medical history for any prior injury to the same limb and argue the condition predates your work accident. Even an injury from years ago can become the basis for a full denial.
Strategy 2: Challenging the Diagnosis Itself
CRPS does not appear on standard X-rays or MRIs. Adjusters and their hired physicians use this absence of imaging evidence to call the diagnosis subjective or unverifiable. This argument directly contradicts established medical science – and it works on uninformed workers who do not know how to fight it.
Strategy 3: Disputing Causation
The insurer argues that whatever happened at work was not serious enough to produce your level of disability. This ignores the documented mechanism of CRPS disease, which is not dependent on the severity of the triggering injury.
Strategy 4: Stacking the IME
Insurers send you to their own Independent Medical Examiner – who predictably disagrees with your treating physician. Under Colorado law, you have the right to request your own IME. We explain exactly how to use that right, and we use it aggressively on behalf of our clients. Initial ratings from insurer-selected physicians are not final.
Colorado Legal Deadlines You Cannot Afford to Miss
Colorado law requires you to report a workplace injury to your employer within four days of the incident. Do not wait for a CRPS diagnosis. Report the original injury immediately. If CRPS symptoms develop later, document and report them as they arise. A diagnosis that takes weeks to appear does not forfeit your rights – but failing to report the original injury can.
Temporary disability benefits in Colorado are typically two-thirds of your average weekly wage. Do not accept a settlement while you are still in the temporary disability phase. Once you sign, that chapter closes permanently.
What to Do Right Now
- Keep a daily pain journal. Record when symptoms worsen, what triggers them, and how they affect your ability to work and function at home. This record becomes evidence.
- See a specialist – not just a general practitioner. Ask for a referral to a pain management specialist or neurologist who has diagnosed and treated CRPS before. Their opinions carry far more weight in legal disputes.
- Do not give recorded statements to the insurer without speaking to an attorney first. Adjusters are trained to ask questions in ways that minimize your claim. You are not required to provide a recorded statement.
- Do not settle early. CRPS treatment costs and disability impacts accumulate over years. Early settlement offers do not account for the full picture.
Contact a CRPS workers’ comp attorney before your claim is denied. The earlier we are involved, the more we can do to protect your claim.
Call (303) 999-9999 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form
