Nevada Workers’ Comp Timeline: Deadlines, Appeals, and Settlement

The Nevada workers’ comp timeline runs on a series of hard deadlines that start the moment you’re hurt: 7 days to tell your employer in writing, 90 days to file a formal claim with the insurer, 30 days for the insurer to accept or deny it, and 70 days to appeal if you disagree. Miss any one of them and an otherwise valid claim can collapse. The stages below walk through each clock in the order it starts ticking.

Day 1 to Day 7: Tell Your Employer in Writing

The first deadline is the shortest. You have 7 days from the accident to give your employer written notice using Form C-1, the Notice of Injury or Occupational Disease.¹ For an occupational disease that develops over time rather than from a single incident, the 7 days run from when you become aware of the condition.

Your employer is required to keep blank C-1 forms available, so ask for one right after the incident.² Fill it out, sign it, keep a copy, and give the original to your supervisor. Filing a C-1 puts your employer on notice. It does not, on its own, open an insurance claim.

Day 1 to Day 90: File the Formal Claim

The insurance claim itself begins with Form C-4, the Employee’s Claim for Compensation and Report of Initial Treatment. You complete your section when you see a doctor, and the treating physician fills in the medical portion certifying that the injury is work-related.³ The doctor then has 3 working days to send the C-4 to your employer and the insurer.⁴

If you go to an emergency room, ask for the C-4 before you leave. Not every ER staff member volunteers it. Make sure the dates and injury description on the C-4 match what you wrote on the C-1, because conflicting details between the two forms are a common reason insurers use to delay or question a claim.

Your employer separately files Form C-3, the Employer’s Report of Industrial Injury or Occupational Disease, and must send it to the insurer within 6 working days of receiving the C-4. You don’t fill this one out, but confirm your employer submits it. A missing C-3 can stall the insurer’s review even when you’ve done everything right.

Behind the individual form deadlines sits an outer 90-day statute of limitations. You must file a claim for compensation with the insurer within 90 days of the accident if you sought medical treatment or missed work.⁵ If a worker dies from the injury, dependents have one year. The C-4 process usually pushes filings well inside 90 days, but if treatment is delayed or you initially thought the injury was minor, this outer deadline can sneak up.

The Insurer’s 30-Day Decision

Once notified of the accident, the insurer has 30 days to accept the claim and start paying benefits or deny it and notify you and the state’s Administrator.⁶ During those 30 days, the adjuster reviews the C-1, C-4, and C-3, checks your employment status, and looks at the medical evidence.

You’ll get a written determination letter at your last known address. An acceptance letter identifies which body parts and conditions the insurer agrees to cover. A denial letter has to explain the reasons. Either way, keep it. The mailing date starts the appeal clock, and you’ll need the claim number on it for every future contact with the insurer.

When Wage Replacement Starts

Nevada does not pay temporary disability benefits for every missed day. Your injury has to keep you from earning full wages for at least 5 consecutive days, or 5 cumulative days within a 20-day period, before wage-replacement benefits kick in.⁵ Below that threshold, you can still get medical benefits but no lost-wage compensation.

Once you cross the 5-day mark, benefits are calculated retroactively from the date of injury. The rate is 66⅔% of your average monthly wage. For fiscal year 2026, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,257.55. If your wages on the date of injury were less than $8,202.80 per month, your benefit is 66⅔% of what you actually earned.⁷

The first temporary total disability check must arrive within 14 working days of the claim’s acceptance, with payments continuing on a regular schedule after that.⁸ If checks stop or arrive late, raise it with the insurer right away. Payment delays sometimes signal that the insurer is preparing to dispute the claim.

The 90-Day Window to Change Doctors

You have to see an authorized medical provider for workers’ compensation treatment. Your employer may use a managed care organization, an HMO, or a preferred provider list, but must give you a selection of authorized providers to choose from.⁹

Within the first 90 days after the injury, you can switch to a different provider on the insurer’s panel without needing permission from anyone. After that window closes, you need written approval from the insurer to change physicians.⁹ If you’re unhappy with your initial doctor, act inside the 90 days. People who wait four months end up asking the insurer for permission they could have avoided needing.

70 Days to Appeal a Denial

If the insurer denies your claim or issues any written determination you disagree with, you have 70 days from the mailing date of the letter to file an appeal with the Hearings Division.¹⁰ The clock runs from the mailing date on the letter, not from when you actually received it, so mail delivery eats into your window. If the Hearings Division doesn’t receive the appeal within 70 days, you generally lose the right to challenge the decision.¹¹

The appeal is a Request for Hearing and must include your name, your employer’s name, the insurer’s name, your claim number, and a copy of the determination letter you’re challenging. A Hearing Officer then conducts the proceeding.¹¹

One trap: if you send the insurer a written request for a determination and the insurer doesn’t respond within 30 days, the Hearing Officer treats that silence as a denial. The deemed denial starts its own 70-day appeal clock, so you can’t sit and wait for a late response.

Reopening a Closed Claim

A closed claim isn’t necessarily a dead one. If your condition worsens after the insurer closes your file, you can apply in writing to reopen it, under different rules depending on how much time has passed since closure.⁵

Within one year of closure, the insurer must reopen if your application includes medical evidence of an objective change in your condition and clear and convincing evidence that the change was primarily caused by the original workplace injury.
More than one year after closure, the insurer must reopen if a change in circumstances warrants increased or rearranged compensation, the original injury is the primary cause, and a physician certifies the change.

There’s a strict exception. If you never missed enough work to meet the 5-day disability threshold and never received permanent partial disability benefits, you must file to reopen within one year of closure. And if a reopening request is denied and that denial becomes final, you can’t reapply for at least one year after the final determination.⁵

At Settlement: SSDI Offset and Medicare Set-Asides

Two federal rules can reshape the end of the timeline. If you receive both Social Security Disability Insurance and Nevada workers’ compensation, your combined monthly benefits from both programs cannot exceed 80% of your “average current earnings,” which approximates what you were earning before the disability. When the two payments together exceed that cap, the Social Security Administration reduces your SSDI benefit to bring the total down.¹² How a settlement is structured can affect the size of that reduction for years.

If you’re already on Medicare or expect to enroll within 30 months of settling, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may need to review the settlement. CMS reviews Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Aside proposals when the claimant is already on Medicare and the total settlement exceeds $25,000, or when the claimant reasonably expects Medicare enrollment within 30 months and the anticipated total settlement exceeds $250,000.¹³ A set-aside carves out part of the settlement to cover future injury-related medical expenses Medicare would otherwise pay. Skip it and Medicare can later refuse to pay for injury-related treatment. For younger workers or those with permanent injuries, the set-aside can consume a large share of the settlement, and it belongs in the math before you accept any offer.

1
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 616C.015 – Notice of Injury or Death: Requirements; Availability of Form; Retention; Notice by Leased Employee
2
Department of Industrial Relations. Nevada Code 616C.015 – Notice of Injury or Occupational Disease
3
Nevada Department of Business and Industry. Employee’s Claim for Compensation/Report of Initial Treatment Form C-4
4
Justia. Nevada Code 616C.040 – Claim for Compensation: Duty of Treating Physician or Chiropractor to File
5
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 616C – Industrial Insurance: Benefits for Injuries or Death
6
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 616C.065 – Duty of Insurer to Accept or Deny Claim
7
Nevada Division of Industrial Relations. Maximum Compensation Fiscal Year 2026 Memorandum
8
Nevada Division of Industrial Relations. Nevada Workers’ Compensation Basic Orientation
9
Nevada Attorney for Injured Workers. Medical Treatment
10
Nevada Attorney for Injured Workers. If Your Claim Is Denied
11
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 616C.315 – Request for Hearing
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 424a – Reduction of Disability Benefits
13
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set Aside Arrangements