Going Paperless. The California Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) plans to go paperless in July 2008. Various units (DEU, SIF, ADJ (where cases are litigated), VOC, RSU, UEF) within the DWC will be integrated in one system called EAMS (electronic adjudication management system). It will constitute a major change in the way the DWC does business.

A Revolutionary Change for All. It will also revolutionize the practice of workers' compensation in California as we know it for all attorneys, insurance adjusters, and others. EAMS is still very much in the development stage, but here's what we know so far about how the system works for external participants, i.e., anyone who doesn't work for the DWC:

The Lowdown

--Each external participant will be given an EAMS account.

--Links to eForms are provided, with forms grouped by unit area, and each form can be filled out online and submitted electronically.

--Numerous eForms, including the Application for Adjudication of Claim, Compromise and Release, Declaration of Readiness to Proceed, Notice of Request for Allowance of Lien, Petition to Terminate Liability for Temporary Disability Indemnity, Stipulations with Request for Award, are available for submission through EAMS.

--A General Public Search link allows you to search for a limited amount of case information.

--There's some new terminology, such as "primary client", which means the injured worker, and "Legacy Case ID", which refers to the number previously used by the DWC unit (DEU, SIF, ADJ, VOC, RSU, UEF) to refer to the case. (Note: Under EAMS a case will have one master number that won't change among the units.)

--A Product Delivery Case Home Page contains items such as the case calendar or case events, which is the EAMS case history. (Note: There will be a separate "product delivery homepage" for each type of case (ADJ, VOC, DEU, etc.).)

--The Case Calendar allows you to view case events similar to your Microsoft outlook calendar.

--An "integrated case" is the umbrella that contains the product delivery cases like ADJ or UEF, and you click on the Case Reference hyperlink to view a case.

--The integrated case contains information common to the product delivery cases, such as information about the injured worker, employer, etc. From the integrated case, it'll be possible to access the various product delivery cases via the Case Reference hyperlinks mentioned above.

--To access documents for a case, you would click on the case type hyperlink in the Case Documents section.

--All case documents will be stored in EAMS, and case participants can search for and access documents in their cases by Case ID, Case Type, Document Date, or by Author.

--On the Modify Address Page, you can modify personal information in EAMS including mailing address, email address, and phone number.

--On the Request for Action Page, you can request that the DWC perform an action on your case, e.g., take a case off calendar, continuance.

--Once you make a request for action, a task is generated and routed to a DWC staff member to handle.

Proposed Regulations. Both the DWC Court Administrator and the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board are revising their respective regulations in light of EAMS. These proposed regulations will soon be posted for public comment. These regulations will establish requirements for electronic filings and other interactions by external participants with EAMS. Stay tuned for more details!