WCDefenseCA

Hello, dear readers!  Are you excited? I’m excited… Online panel requests start tomorrow, and we get to watch it all unfold before our eager eyes!

If you submitted any initial panel requests after September 3, 2015, you will probably be getting them bounced back sooner or later, because the Medical Unit is going digital!

If you haven’t already, you can watch the tutorial here.

Now, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. No one has been able to submit a panel request since September 3, 2015, so there’s almost a month’s-worth of panel requests that will be hitting the system bright and early 8:00 a.m. on Monday. You know what that means right?  There’s a good chance the system will crash.
2. When the system crashes – who wins? No one really – there will be endless litigation about what the result is of a panel dispute caused by a crashed system.   The pressure to use an AME will be greater than ever – will you determination hold firm?
3. If the system does crash, there will be two categories of problems: those that submitted a panel request and didn’t get one; and those that can’t submit a panel request at all because the system is down. Where will you fall? How will you deal with it?

I shouldn’t joke too much, of course – I’m very happy to have workers’ compensation proceedings become more and more digital and electronic.  Once the system is running smoothly, we may enjoy the benefits of an instant panel, rather than a 3-week or 3-month turnaround time for a paper request.

Here’s hoping your panel submission goes smoothly, dear readers.