We treat work and accident injuries for Illinois patients, and Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP is licensed in Illinois. Under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act you, not your employer, choose the treating physician: two choices, and referrals those providers make do not count against them.
We see injured people from both sides of the river. If you were hurt in Illinois, know one thing before you accept a referral. The choice of treating physician is yours, and it is written into the statute.
We are a medical practice, not a law firm. The statutory position below is summarized from the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission’s own handbook and the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act; questions about your particular claim belong with your attorney or the Commission.
Can you choose your own doctor for workers’ comp in Illinois?
Under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act the injured worker — not the employer — chooses the treating physician. You get two choices of provider, and referrals made by those providers do not count against them. Emergency care and first aid do not count either.
If your employer operates an approved Preferred Provider Program, your two choices come from inside that network — but you may decline the program in writing after reporting the injury, and declining counts as one of your two.
Missouri runs the opposite rule. Under RSMo 287.140 the employer selects the treating physician, and an employee who prefers their own doctor may use one only at their own expense. Two states side by side, with opposite defaults. That is why an Illinois worker who assumes the Missouri rule applies gives away a right they actually hold.
Why it matters clinically, not just legally
An exam the payer sends you to and one you pick yourself produce different records. When the party paying the claim picks the doctor, the pull on cause, work ability and length of care all leans one way. Choosing your own doctor does not guarantee a better outcome. It means the record is built by someone whose only duty is to you.
That record is what a reviewer, a defense expert and, in the end, an adjuster will weigh. How adjusters devalue claims covers what they look for.
What we actually do
Objective records come first: imaging read against the exam, electrodiagnostic testing where nerves may be involved, and function measured, not just claimed. Then comes interventional treatment aimed at the confirmed source.
Dr. Padda is licensed in Illinois and holds full staff privileges at Anderson Hospital in Maryville. The exam happens at the Woodson Road office in Missouri. The Illinois license and privileges are credentials you can check from home.
Communities we see Illinois patients from
- Alton — the shortest drive of any community we serve in Illinois
- Belleville — St. Clair County
- Collinsville
- Edwardsville
- Glen Carbon
- Maryville — where Anderson Hospital is
- Troy
What a defensible record actually contains
Claims are not decided by how much pain you report. They are decided by what a reviewer can check months later. That list is shorter than most people expect. It is exam findings that can be repeated. It is imaging read against those findings, not on its own. And it is function measured on a scale someone else can re-run.
What does not hold up is a file of visits saying the patient still hurts. That reads as if no one investigated. It is the single easiest thing for an adjuster to brush off. The subjectivity problem is the whole reason objective measures matter here.
Where nerve involvement is suspected, electrodiagnostic testing turns a symptom into a measurement. Where a shoulder or a spine is the question, imaging plus a diagnostic block can sort the structure that hurts from the three that only look abnormal.
Do Illinois or Missouri workers’ comp rules apply to you?
People who live in Illinois and work in Missouri, or the other way around, routinely assume the rule follows their address. It does not. Jurisdiction generally follows where the employment relationship sits and where the injury occurred, which means a Belleville resident injured at a Missouri jobsite may be inside Missouri’s system and subject to its employer-selects rule.
Sort that out early, not after you have spent a provider choice. Missouri and Illinois injury law compared shows how the two systems differ in practice. It is the first thing to sort out if you cross the river to work.
What we do not do
We do not make up findings. We will tell you when an exam is normal. A doctor who records an impairment that is not there is worthless to you the moment a defense expert reads the file, because it ruins trust in everything else in it.
We also do not treat an authorization as a guarantee. An approval means a payer has agreed a service is medically necessary; it is not a promise of payment, and the two get conflated constantly. We tell you which is which before anything is scheduled.
Related reading: a knee injury at work and repetitive strain injury.
Illinois patients can join our physician-directed physiotherapy program in St. Louis: a plan built around the injury, ordered and supervised by a physician, with every visit fully documented.
Frequently asked questions
Can my employer make me see their doctor in Illinois?
Not as your only option. The Act gives you two choices of provider, and referrals from those do not count against the two. If a Preferred Provider Program is in place you may decline it in writing after reporting the injury.
How the Illinois and Missouri rules compare is set out in The River Decides More Than You Think.
Is that the same in Missouri?
No, and the gap is stark. In Missouri the employer selects the treating physician under RSMo 287.140, and your own choice is at your own expense. Background: Missouri and Illinois injury law compared.
Does going to the emergency room use up a choice?
No. Emergency care and first aid are not counted as one of your two choices, and neither is non-emergency care obtained before you reported the injury.
Will my care be authorized?
Authorization and payment are different things, and an approval is not a promise of payment. We verify benefits before scheduling and tell you plainly what is settled and what is not.
Why an authorization is not a promise of payment is set out in Not Covered Is a Budget Decision.
How does workers’ comp work in Illinois?
On the medical side, you choose the treating physician, not your employer. You get two choices of provider, and referrals those providers make do not count against the two. Emergency care and first aid do not count either. If your employer runs an approved Preferred Provider Program, you may decline it in writing after reporting the injury, and declining counts as one of your two.
Do doctors treat workers’ comp patients differently?
The record they produce can differ. When the party paying the claim picks the doctor, the pull on cause, work ability and length of care all leans one way. Choosing your own doctor does not guarantee a better outcome. It means the record is built by someone whose only duty is to you. That record is what a reviewer and an adjuster will weigh.
Where we are
Accident and Injury Experts
4477 Woodson Rd, Suite 202, St. Louis, MO 63134
Next to St. Louis Lambert International Airport, with parking at the door.
Call (314) 887-5866 · info@injuryexperts.us