News News Archive Email A Friend March 25, 2024 California Division of Workers' Compensation Posts Adjustments to Official Medical Fee Schedule (Physician Services / Non-Physician Practitioner Services) March 19, 2024 Nearly half of all litigated workers' compensation claims in the Los Angeles basin are cumulative trauma claims. March 7, 2024 California's Division of Workers' Compensation Posts Adjustment to Official Medical Fee Schedule (Ambulance Services) March 6, 2024 Accident Claims The Life of AdminSure Claims Adjuster Alexis Wicker
| | Ethics Review Ordered For Workers' Compensation Judges By Associated Press - December 5, 2004SACRAMENTO (AP) _ The director of the state's workers' compensation program says she will review the system's ethics rules and complaints and enforce a hands-off approach when it comes to its own employees' claims.
The reforms come amid reports the system's administrative judges file an above-average proportion of claims for on-the-job injuries. The claims create the potential for conflicts of interest because attorneys and doctors representing the judges can appear before them on other claims.
Andrea Hoch, administrative director of the California Division of Workers' Compensation, said she wants to make sure cases involving judges are transferred to distant offices, as is already required, and intends to review complaints filed with the Workers' Compensation Ethics Advisory Committee, a nine-member panel formed by lawmakers in 1996 to monitor judges.
Judges are supposed to remove themselves from considering cases where there is a potential conflict. Hoch said she's open to letting attorneys file conflict of interest complaints anonymously, so they won't face retaliation by the judge.
Hoch ordered the changes after The Sacramento Bee found that judges there were six times more likely to file workers compensation claims than administrative judges working for other state agencies. Judges claimed injuries for tripping over phone cords, loading boxes into trunks, rearranging artwork--even writer's cramp. |