Did OWCP use Dr. Garelick to rate your upper extremity schedule award?

David H. Garelick, MD, is a district medical advisor (DMA) for OWCP reviewing schedule award requests. OWCP recently acknowledged that he has been misapplying the AMA Guides, 6th Edition ("AMAG6"), with regard to upper extremity schedule award calculations. This has probably been occurring since 2009. As a result, many claimants received smaller schedule award percentages than they should have for arm injuries when there was a loss of range of motion. If this applies to you or someone you know, you should investigate whether the award was properly calculated using the corrected Table 15-5 in the revised AMAG6 released May 2009. If you are concerned about whether Dr. Garelick was involved in your schedule award, you can write to OWCP requesting a copy of the “DMA memo that was used to determine my schedule award.” The DMA memo will be signed by the doctor who authored it. This only applies to arm ratings and only if you have a loss of range of motion that was excluded from your rating.