What I suggest is that you always TRY to have a weeks worth of meds ahead at a bare minimum, in anticipation of delays. WC allows you to submit your scripts to the pharmacy 21 days after your last Rx's were filled. But, they can delay you every month if they want to! So if you turn in at 21 days, you might get lucky and have an approval by day 30. With the holidays coming, you might even need to get in really early this month, if the doc requires an appointment for your Rx to be written. (And how stupid is it to deny a CRPS patient meds when going without can cause spread, forcing WC to spend more on additional procedures! The last time they did "reforms" it reduced our quality of care and costs went up 30%. They just don't learn.)

They are definitely trying to encourage people to settle the med portions of their old claims by making things nightmarish. I've had 3 new adjustors in the past year and they don't send notification to me or my attorney. (Each time I figured it out by talking to Express Scripts, the 3rd party biller.)

Verify your doc is submitting both required forms. Avoid the IMR process if at all possible. They have massive denial rates and like I said before, you're stuck with the decision for 1 year.