News and Information for the Workers' Compensation Industry

Workers Compensation FAQ

Questions and Answer Session with WorkCompCentral

What is Workers' Compensation?

Workers compensation is a statutory legislative system that will provide workers with immediate recourse in an event of injury on the job, also provides employers with protection against being sued from those injuries. Workers compensation will also provide immediate medical care, indemnity or money in the event that there’s loss of wages, some assistance to return to work and various other benefits that are mandated by the state legislator, in exchange for that the employer pays a premium for a insurance policy to cover these things and the bargain for exchange is the employer is immune from suit in ninety nine percent of the cases. All states require mandatory workers compensation insurance coverage except for Texas. 

Who is WorkCompCentral?

WorkCompCentral is a news and information service for the workers compensation industry. We write and publish the news everyday so that it is custom sourced through a team of journalist. We post legal sources for the industry such as statutes, regulations, and case law. With a suite of calculators we can help people in the industry determine values used in workers compensation practice. We have a school for continuing education.

What is Edex?

It stands for electronic data exchange, which is a system that ties into the state of California workers compensation appeals for case management system, so that once users have been authenticated and given rights by the division of workers compensation can error act electronically with the state using the system to look up case histories, to establish hearing notices or significant events that happened on a case, to find out when a case is filed or to file lean claims against a case.

How do attorneys become involved with a situation where an employee becomes injured on a job? 

As in any delivery benefit system some people think there entitled to benefits and some people think there not entitled to benefits and that creates a dispute. In a legal system or a quasi system attorneys will become involved any time there’s a dispute over whether or not benefits are due in owing. The injured worker, insurance company or employer may tell the injured worker that there not entitled to the kind of benefits the injured worker believes there entitled to, so the worker will higher an attorney and conversely the insurance company when the attorney represents the injured worker will higher there attorney to represent there interests and that’s how the attorney gets involved. 

What are the benefits of logging into WorkCompCentral for news and information about Workers' Compensation? 

We have services that are for free and we have services you need to pay a subscription for. Typically the paid subscription items are things you cannot find easily elsewhere, such as our daily news, calculators and case law. What people pay subscription for is the convenience of having everything in one place organized accordingly and the ease of accessing that material. Workers compensation is spread out all over the place. Free services would be material that would be work of promotional value such as articles that are free to the public written by professionals that want there names to be known, so we have a place for those to be published. The reason we require people to register and it is not wide open is because we are delivering the free stuff which is a value to the customer. As a consequence we ask for some personal information to help us direct the content more accurately to that user. For instance if you were a occupational therapist professional then some of our content would be pacifically directed to you we don’t know how to direct content to you until you register and tell us who you are. 

How would one benefit from finding news related Workers' Compensation information?

The news is very timely and cutting edge. For instance we have many recorded instances where an attorney or an insurance company claims examiner reads our news and realizes there’s a change in circumstance in a case that may benefit or affect it negatively, so they are able to take immediate corrective action rather than waiting one or two months which is how it used to be we would have to wait one or two months and that information would filter out through the community by then its to late to take corrective action on your case. We actually have testimonials where attorneys have written and thanked us because we either have saved them or helped them get literally tens of thousands of dollars on there case because of the instant and timely information we provide. The only days we don’t publish fresh news is on the weekends. Everyday there’s fresh news twenty-five to thirty five new stories are published everyday. The columns are professional columns they are free to anybody. They are rotated every two weeks as advice and discussion type pieces. For instance we have a column series going on a technical legal issue in workers compensation known as a portion men because the law and the rules of engagement on that particular issue change drastically because of the California reform system. In which case the columns offer advice or raise observation about the industry and similar things.

What would you need a calculator for?

Calculators are used for some simple calculations such as figuring out the number of days between dates while others are very complex calculators that can literally save the user hours compared to do it manually. A good example of that would be doing a commutation calculation. Commutation is a statutorily prescribed method of doing a present value calculation for an indemnity annuity that’s paid out over the course of time. Sometimes a client may want to do a lump sum settlement of their annuity but in order to do that the law requires you to perform a complex computation calculation to determine the exact present value payment of that lump sum and how it affects the subsequent annuity payment. If you were to do that calculation manually it would take you literally two hours to do because of all the steps the law requires. Using our calculator your time is mostly spent inputting the data, which takes five to ten, minutes if you’re organized. When you press the button it gives you all the necessary information that you need. We also have calculators that perform permanent disability computations so that you convert a medical report into an indemnity value and various other calculators that are used for those calculations that the industry peoples used all the time. The calculations all relate to values and reserves on a claim. Both sides of the equations will use the calculators in their arguments on the value of a claim. 

What is Workers' Compensation Research?

Research is where your going to go to find all of your legal resources such as statute or code sections, regulations that are prom legated by the divisions to execute what the legislative says in their statutes. There will also be case law. Case law is the published cases that are used to interpret codes and regulations. What we do is unique. All of are cases, codes and regulations are cross indexed meaning all of the resources are connected in a side bar so that when you pull up a certain case you will have the information that is titled. Each item will have a head note, which is done by our editors to briefly describe what the case is about. It makes your legal research much faster and accurate.

Who is Lexus Nexus and how is WorkCompCentral different?


Lexus Nexus is the world’s largest legal publisher. They publish proprietary resources known as the California compensation cases and other proprietary resources for other states. Their main resource engine is the Lexus Nexus website. Their owned by Reed Elselyer a British owned publishing company that does billions of dollars in revenue every year. West is owned by the Compson Company out of Canada. They are the direct competitor to Lexus. They also publish various legal resources for attorneys and others that are involved in legal disputes. They don’t do anything specifically for workers compensation other than publish titles. Both companies are competitors in that were all involved in legal publication. What makes WorkCompCentral different is that were singular focused of workers compensation where they are more general in nature. Our stuff is faster, better, cheaper and easier to find because we're more focused. We do industry specific news, which neither of the other companies do. 

Why would someone need workers' compensation education or training?

Most states require continuing education of both legal professionals and claims professionals. All states require continuing education of agents and brokers. We provide state certified continuing education for all of those individuals and physicians pacific to workers compensation. All of our courses are interactive web based training, authored and instructed by long time professionals in workers compensation; such as attorneys, doctors, claims people, brokers and agents. 

What are WorkCompCentral's online communities and forums?

Forums are an open place for the community to get together and discuss issues, ask questions, get answers, like any other forum on the web. California forum is particularly popular with the community. They have developed an online community there that is looked at quite a bit by the judges in the system, senior insurance company executives and government officials. They are able to see what the community is saying and how they feel about those issues, how their interpreting a law or how a case is going to affect what they’re doing. It is a popular aspect of our services, which is completely free. 

What are WorkCompCentral's jobs?

Jobs are basic advertising for employment matters in worker compensation. At jobs you’ll find listings for insurance personal or attorneys and legal related employment opportunities. It is classified advertising.

What are WorkCompCentral's free ads?

Free ads are free classified advertising. The only thing we don’t allow on there are job ads. You can sell items or post unique services and it is completely free.

What are the benefits of subscribing to information and news provided over the Internet?

The huge benefit is time and expense savings. The only other way to get all of this information other than the Internet is at your local law library. To locate this stuff at the local law library is daunting so we make it easier. Another advantage to the Internet is you can do it from where ever you have an Internet connection. The search capabilities make your research much quicker. There may be some software that does specialized things like calculator software. For the most part when it’s included as part of the web service it makes it easier and cheaper for your computer to stand alone on.

What kind of products does WorkCompCentral have for sale?

For sale we have primarily books and posters. The books would be manuals and treatises that would be used by workers compensation professionals in their daily work comp activities. For instance the A& A guides which is used by everybody in workers compensation to assist in the determination of the value of a disability. We have some legal treatises, posters that we have authored ourselves that lays out the whole landscape of workers compensation. You can quickly see where the issues are and how to navigate the whole system. 

How are you perceived by the Department of Labor or the State Divisions of Workers' Compensation?

They are all subscribers. If you’re professional workers compensation you come to us to find out what’s going on; which includes everybody from regulators on through injured workers, employers, attorneys, and physicians. Basically anybody that has anything to do with workers compensation comes to us to get the information.

Answers by WorkCompCentral

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