Officials Strain To Set New Calif. Comp Regs

By Daniel Hays

NU Online News Service, Aug. 31, 3:32 p.m. EDT?Efforts by the Division of Workers' Compensation to meet a deadline for crafting regulations that implement California's new comp law reforms are on schedule, a spokesman said.[@@]

"We're still on track with our time frame. There hasn't been any delays," said Dean Friar, speaking for the Department of Industrial Relations, which contains the division.

The possibility that development of rules could be delayed has been an issue of concern raised by some in the insurance industry.

"There's a lot left to implement by Jan. 1," said Bruce Wood, assistant general counsel of the American Insurance Association in Washington, D.C., speaking about the regulations last week.

Mr. Wood, speaking at the Workers' Compensation Educational Conference in Orlando, Fla., told a session on National Trends In Workers' Compensation, sponsored by National Underwriter that he thought work on the regulations "could go either way. It could be implemented successfully or we could have a train wreck."

Mr. Friar said the regulations being worked on involve the use of American Medical Association guidelines for impairment ratings that would determine an injured worker's degree of disability.

Among other regulations would be standards and requirements for employers' use of medical provider networks to treat injured workers.

Mr. Friar said the division aims to complete regulations by Nov. 1 in order to deliver them to the Office of Administrative Law for a review of compliance with state statutes.

OAL has a month to approve the regulations or send them back for modification. The division has had two meetings to put together regulations and will hold public hearings in September and October to further refine them before Nov. 1. "It's an aggressive approach but we're going to do it," he said.

Sam Sorich, president of the Association of California Insurance Companies in Sacramento, said insurers were looking forward to rules setting a permanent disability schedule that gives carriers predictable results so they have the ability to predict ultimate losses.

The current system, he said, is very subjective and allows for big differences in the findings of different judges for the same type of injury.

Predictability, he said, would make insurers "more confident to stay in the marketplace."

As for meeting the deadline, Mr. Sorich said: "I wouldn't say we're in a crisis stage quite yet." However, he noted, "there was an expectation by now there would be at least a draft of regulations out." Still, he added, "I wouldn't sound the alarm quite yet. We remain hopeful."

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Officials Strain To Set New Calif. Comp Regs

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