A “Newsline” dated May 20, 2013, is going out to the world to tell everyone that the DWC is tired of your complaining that the panels are taking too long to issue.

So what if you need medical issues to be resolved?  So what if you’re an injured worker in too much pain to work and not receiving TD based on a doctor’s report?  So what if the treating physician has just added on 65 additional injuries, from sexual dysfunction to decreased eyesight following a paper-cut, too bad.  You’ll have to wait.

In other news, the fire department will get to your burning house when they get to it, and that ambulance you called for? Yeah, we’ll see…

It appears that the DWC tried hiring student assistants (remember all those erroneous rejections?) and overtime pay, but that proved to be “not sustainable” so the community is now told to hold off until July 1, 2013, when the Medical Unit will not need to issue panels for medical treatment disputes.

Of course, once the Independent Medical Review process comes into effect, won’t the Medical Unit just be told to cut back on its budget because it no longer has to process the medical dispute requests?

How difficult would it be to have an automated system?  If I can e-file a DOR and choose my own hearing date, why can’t I log onto the Medical Unit and request a panel?  We already type in all the information for a panel request, and if an electronic panel request is premature, you can be sure that the other side is going to file a Declaration of Readiness to Proceed on the issue of which panel issued controls.  And, if two panels are generated on the same day, the one in the same specialty as the treating physician would control.