The 2024 California legislative season is over. The Legislature had until Aug. 31, 2024, to pass bills, and Gov. Gavin Newsom had until Sept. 30, 2024, to sign or veto them. The bills signed by the governor take effect Jan. 1, 2025.
On March 9, 2022, the Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) announced that in-person hearings will resume starting March 21, 2022, at almost all of the DWC district offices. The only exceptions are Eureka, which is now a completely virtual office, and satellite locations Bishop, Marysville, Chico and Ukiah, which also will remain virtual. The in-person hearings apply only to trials, lien trials, expedited hearings and special adjudication unit (SAU) trials. The DWC will continue to telephonically hear all mandatory settlement conferences, priority conferences, status conferences, SAU conferences and lien conferences via the individually assigned judges’ conference lines.
For a medical provider network (MPN) to be valid, it must offer access and a certain degree of choice for the injured worker. Labor Code 4616(a)(1) states, "The provider network shall include an adequate number and type of physicians, as described in Section 3209.3, or other providers, as described in Section 3209.5, to treat common injuries experienced by injured employees based on the type of occupation or industry in which the employee is engaged..." It also requires an MPN to include physicians based on "the geographic area where the employees are employed." Accordingly, California Code of Regulations, Title 8, 9767.5 establishes the access standards for a valid MPN. CCR 9767.5(a) requires an MPN to "have at least three available physicians of each specialty to treat common injuries experienced by injured employees based on the type of occupation or industry in which the employee is engaged and within the access standards set forth in (1) and (2)." CCR 9767.5(a)(1) requires an MPN...
