DWC Issues Proposed Regs. for Online QME Requests

DANA POINT, California – Administrators for the Division of Workers' Compensation on Friday announced regulatory changes aimed at speeding up the process for getting qualified medical evaluator panels and independent medical review decisions. The agency has been struggling to keep up with the high volume of requests for QMEs and IMR, resulting in backlogs. Destie Overpeck, the long-time acting administrative director of California's Division of Workers’ Compensation, said that the agency gets about 12,000 requests for QME panels each month. In 2009, the average was 8,000...