Stephen Hasner | Workers' Compensation | December 4, 2025
Pre-existing conditions often give insurance companies a reason to dispute workers’ compensation claims in Georgia. Adjusters often point to old injuries, arthritis, or past treatment to claim your current symptoms aren’t work-related. Georgia law, however, covers injuries when work aggravates or adds to any existing condition.
A workers’ compensation lawyer can document how your symptoms changed after the incident and rebut efforts to attribute those changes solely to your medical history. With the right documentation and expert support, you can establish that your job played a real role in your current need for care.
If an insurer is questioning your claim because of past health issues, Hasner Law is ready to help. Call Hasner Law at 678-888-HURT (4878) for a free consultation with a workers’ compensation lawyer today.
Key Takeaways About The Impact of Pre-Existing Conditions on Workers’ Comp Claims in Georgia
- Georgia workers’ compensation law covers aggravation of pre-existing conditions when workplace activities contribute to new injuries or worsen existing problems.
- Insurance companies must pay full benefits even when pre-existing conditions make you more susceptible to workplace injuries than other workers.
- Medical evidence distinguishing new workplace harm from underlying conditions determines whether claims involving pre-existing conditions succeed.
- The apportionment defense only applies when doctors specifically assign percentage values to pre-existing versus work-related components of disability.
- Strategic medical documentation and expert testimony overcome insurance company attempts to blame everything on pre-existing conditions.
Georgia Law on Pre-Existing Conditions and Workers’ Compensation
Georgia Code § 34-9-1(4) defines compensable injuries broadly enough to include aggravation of pre-existing conditions when employment contributes to the harm. Workers don’t need pristine medical histories to qualify for benefits. The law recognizes that workplace activities often push vulnerable body parts past their breaking points, creating new injuries that require treatment and compensation.
The Aggravation Standard Under Georgia Law
Georgia follows the aggravation rule, meaning employers take workers as they find them with all existing medical conditions and vulnerabilities. When workplace activities aggravate, accelerate, or combine with pre-existing conditions to produce disability or need for medical treatment, the entire resulting condition becomes compensable.
The work incident doesn’t need to be the sole cause or even the primary cause, just a contributing factor that precipitates the need for treatment.
Burden of Proof in Pre-Existing Condition Cases
Workers must prove that employment contributed to their current need for medical treatment or disability, but this burden isn’t as heavy as insurance companies pretend. Medical testimony establishing any causal contribution from work activities satisfies Georgia’s legal standard.
Insurance companies bear the burden of proving that pre-existing conditions alone caused your current problems without any workplace contribution, which rarely succeeds when properly challenged.
Common Pre-Existing Conditions That Affect Workers’ Comp Claims
Certain medical conditions appear repeatedly in workers’ compensation disputes because they create vulnerability to workplace injuries. Insurance companies maintain databases tracking these conditions and train adjusters to flag them for denial. Understanding how these conditions interact with workplace injuries helps you prepare stronger claims.
Degenerative Disc Disease and Spinal Conditions
Nearly everyone over 40 shows some degree of degenerative disc disease on MRI scans, making this the most commonly weaponized pre-existing condition. Insurance companies argue that any back injury must result from degeneration rather than lifting, falling, or repetitive work activities.
Georgia courts consistently reject these arguments when medical evidence shows specific workplace incidents caused disc herniations, nerve impingement, or other acute injuries superimposed on underlying degeneration.
Spinal conditions that frequently trigger insurance company denials include:
- Previous back surgeries or fusion procedures that allegedly weakened surrounding structures
- Spondylolisthesis or other congenital spinal abnormalities discovered after workplace injuries
- Documented history of back pain treatments even without specific injury diagnoses
- Imaging showing arthritis, stenosis, or other age-related changes
These conditions don’t prevent workers’ compensation coverage when workplace activities cause new injuries or push stable conditions into requiring treatment.
Medical providers who understand workers’ compensation can distinguish acute workplace trauma from underlying degenerative changes through careful examination and diagnostic testing.
Prior Injuries to the Same Body Part
Previous injuries to shoulders, knees, or other body parts create obvious targets for insurance company denials. Adjusters argue that current symptoms stem from old injuries rather than new workplace trauma. They ignore years of successful function between injuries or the specific mechanism of the workplace incident that caused new damage.
Georgia Board Rule 221 requires insurance companies to provide medical treatment for workplace injuries even when prior injuries involved the same body part. Successful claims focus on objective evidence of new pathology like fresh tears on MRI, acute inflammation markers, or surgical findings showing recent trauma distinct from old injury patterns.
Arthritis and Joint Degeneration
Insurance companies routinely deny claims involving workers over 50 by blaming symptoms on arthritis visible on X-rays or MRIs. They argue that gradual degeneration, not workplace activities, caused the need for treatment.
Georgia law protects workers whose arthritis remained asymptomatic until workplace activities triggered pain, inflammation, or functional limitations requiring medical intervention.
Insurance Company Tactics Exploiting Pre-Existing Conditions
Insurance companies developed sophisticated strategies to exploit pre-existing conditions during claim investigations. Recognizing these tactics helps you avoid traps that sink many workers’ compensation claims involving medical histories.
Medical Record Mining Operations
Insurance companies employ teams dedicated to obtaining and analyzing every medical record you’ve ever generated. They search for any mention of pain, discomfort, or treatment to body parts involved in your workplace injury claim. A single complaint of back stiffness to your family doctor five years ago becomes proof that current back injuries pre-existed your workplace accident.
Independent Medical Examination Manipulation
Insurance companies select doctors for independent medical examinations who reliably blame everything on pre-existing conditions. These doctors receive extensive medical records highlighting every prior complaint while minimizing workplace injury mechanisms. They perform cursory examinations focused on finding signs of chronic conditions rather than acute workplace trauma.
Common manipulation tactics during these examinations include asking leading questions about prior symptoms, performing tests designed to reproduce chronic rather than acute pain patterns, and ignoring positive findings that support workplace causation. Examinations often last just minutes despite generating reports claiming comprehensive evaluation ruled out workplace contribution.
Selective Use of Medical Literature
Insurance company doctors cite medical studies about the prevalence of asymptomatic disc degeneration or arthritis to argue your condition would have developed regardless of work activities. They ignore literature showing how workplace activities accelerate degeneration or cause previously stable conditions to become symptomatic. These selective literature reviews create seemingly scientific justifications for denying benefits.
Proving Work-Related Aggravation of Pre-Existing Conditions
Successfully proving workplace aggravation requires strategic medical evidence development and careful documentation of how work activities caused new harm. Generic medical treatment won’t overcome insurance company defenses based on pre-existing conditions.
Medical Evidence Requirements
Your treating physician must understand the specific mechanism of workplace injury and document how it caused new pathology or transformed asymptomatic conditions into ones requiring treatment. Effective medical evidence includes:
- Detailed descriptions of workplace injury mechanisms and immediate symptom
- Diagnostic test interpretations distinguishing acute from chronic findings
- Treatment records showing response patterns consistent with acute injury
- Functional capacity evaluations demonstrating work-related limitations
Physicians familiar with workers’ compensation know how to document temporal relationships between workplace incidents and symptom onset, objective findings supporting acute injury, and medical reasoning why work activities caused the need for treatment despite pre-existing conditions.
The Role of Medical Experts
Board-certified specialists who review complete medical records and perform thorough examinations provide powerful evidence countering insurance company denials. These experts translate complex medical issues for administrative law judges and explain how the work incident produced a new, compensable injury despite any underlying conditions.
Expert testimony becomes particularly valuable when addressing biomechanical causation, explaining how specific work activities create forces that damage vulnerable structures, or distinguishing acute traumatic findings from chronic degenerative changes on imaging studies.
Documenting Workplace Injury Mechanisms
Detailed documentation of exactly how workplace injuries occurred strengthens claims involving pre-existing conditions. Incident reports should specify lifting weights, awkward positions, repetitive motion patterns, or sudden traumatic forces that caused injury.
Witness statements confirming injury mechanisms and immediate pain responses counter insurance company arguments that symptoms gradually developed from pre-existing conditions rather than workplace trauma.
Legal Strategies for Workers’ Compensation Lawyers Handling These Cases
Experienced workers’ compensation lawyers employ specific strategies to protect clients whose pre-existing conditions complicate their claims. These approaches counter insurance company tactics while building compelling evidence of workplace causation.
Early Medical Intervention Strategies
Attorneys coordinate with treating physicians from the beginning to develop proper medical documentation. This includes educating doctors about Georgia’s aggravation standard and helping them understand what medical opinions successfully establish workplace causation. Early intervention prevents medical records that inadvertently support insurance company positions.
Challenging Apportionment Attempts
Insurance companies try to apportion disability between pre-existing conditions and workplace injuries to reduce benefits. Georgia law only permits apportionment when medical evidence establishes specific percentages attributable to each cause.
Attorneys challenge vague apportionment attempts lacking supporting medical methodology or based solely on the existence of pre-existing conditions without analysis of actual contribution to disability.
Litigation Preparation and Hearing Strategy
Claims involving pre-existing conditions frequently proceed to hearings before an administrative law judge. Preparation includes developing medical timelines showing stability before workplace injury, obtaining pre-injury employment records demonstrating full work capacity, and preparing witnesses who observed immediate effects of workplace incidents.
Hearing strategy focuses on cross-examining insurance company doctors about their limited examinations and selective record reviews.
How Hasner Law Protects Workers With Pre-Existing Conditions
Hasner Law fights for injured workers throughout Atlanta and Georgia whose pre-existing conditions become ammunition for insurance company denials.
Our workers’ compensation lawyers have recovered over $1 billion for clients by exposing insurance company tactics that wrongfully blame pre-existing conditions for workplace injuries. We know how to present medical evidence that proves work activities caused new harm, regardless of your medical history.
Insurance companies hire doctors to review your entire medical history searching for anything to label a pre-existing condition. They highlight decade-old ER records, minor past complaints to primary-care doctors, and imaging that reflects only normal age-related changes.
Our attorneys work with treating physicians and independent medical experts who understand how to document workplace aggravation of underlying conditions according to Georgia law requirements.
Pre-existing condition cases require aggressive representation from the start. We gather comprehensive medical records, coordinate with your doctors on proper documentation, and prepare detailed evidence packages that force insurance companies to acknowledge workplace causation.
Call Hasner Law at 678-888-HURT (4878) for your free consultation and learn how we protect workers whose pre-existing conditions become insurance company targets.
FAQs for Workers’ Compensation Lawyers
How do insurance companies find out about my pre-existing conditions?
Insurance companies access comprehensive medical histories through signed medical authorizations, insurance databases, and pharmacy records. They employ specialized firms that obtain records from every medical provider you’ve visited, including emergency rooms, urgent care centers, specialists, and physical therapists going back many years before your workplace injury.
What if I didn’t tell my employer about a pre-existing condition when I was hired?
Georgia law doesn’t require disclosure of pre-existing conditions during hiring unless specifically asked on medical questionnaires. Failing to disclose pre-existing conditions doesn’t disqualify you from workers’ compensation benefits as long as you accurately report your workplace injury and provide honest medical history during treatment.
Can I get workers’ comp if I have arthritis that got worse at work?
Yes, Georgia workers’ compensation covers aggravation of arthritis when workplace activities cause increased symptoms, inflammation, or need for treatment. The law protects workers whose pre-existing arthritis was manageable until workplace activities pushed it past the threshold requiring medical intervention or causing disability.
What happens if I had surgery on the same body part years before my work injury?
Previous surgery doesn’t prevent workers’ compensation coverage for new workplace injuries to the same body part. Your claim focuses on proving that workplace activities caused new damage requiring additional treatment, which medical providers can usually distinguish through examination, imaging, and surgical findings showing acute trauma distinct from old surgical changes.
Take Control of Your Workers’ Compensation Claim Today
Pre-existing conditions are a common excuse insurers use to deny benefits, but Georgia law protects employees whose work aggravates or accelerates existing medical issues. Conditions like arthritis, prior injuries, or degeneration do not disqualify you if your job contributes to your need for treatment or causes disability.
Hasner Law pushes back when insurers try to blame everything on pre-existing conditions. We gather strong medical evidence to prove work-related causation and enforce your right to the benefits Georgia law provides.
Don’t let an insurance company use your medical history to deny you the compensation you deserve. Call Hasner Law at 678-888-HURT (4878) for a free consultation with a workers’ compensation attorney experienced in overcoming pre-existing condition denials. You pay nothing unless we win your case.
