At a September 27 CHSWC, RAND researcher Kandice Kapinos PhD presented preliminary slides on a study of injured worker medical treatment access. The slides, titled “Access to Medical Treatment for Injured Workers in California: Year 2 Report” can be seen at the link below: https://www.dir.ca.gov/chswc/Meetings/2018/briefing_CHSWC_Kapinos092718_r3.pdf The study, commissioned by the DIR as required by Labor
On September 23 Governor Brown signed four workers’ comp bills but vetoed five other comp-related bills. The bills signed by Brown were ones that it was widely expected he would sign. Those bills (for which I’ve included descriptions from the legislative analyses and links to the legislative website) are as follows: • AB 1749 (Daly)
The California Division of Workers’ Comp is going back to the drawing board on possible changes to the medical-legal fee schedule. A public meeting to discuss a possible new schedule has been announced for October 17 in Oakland. A large turnout is likely. After all, some possible changes to the current med-legal fee schedule met
The recent California Department of Industrial Relations report on IMR (see link below) isn’t full of surprises. The 2018 report is one of a series of annual reports on IMR. This one examines 2017 data on Independent Medical Review (IMR). One gets the feeling we’ve seen this rodeo before. Still, some of the stats seem
The 2018 California legislative session is over. My last post, “Home Stretch”, detailed the California workers’ comp bills that were under consideration as the session neared its close: http://www.workerscompzone.com/2018/08/29/home-stretch/ All of those bills have passed and are now with Governor Brown. To recap, that includes the following: • AB 479 (Gonzalez Fletcher) (addresses rating criteria