On January 23, the California Department of Insurance (CDI) sent the final version of the new workers’ compensation claims adjuster/medical bill reviewer certification regulations to the Secretary of State’s office. Those regulations, which set minimum standards of training, experience and skills for claims adjusters and medical bill reviewers in the California workers’ compensation system, take effect February 22, 2006.

To help members of the community become more familiar with these new requirements and to clarify some unanswered questions, the CDI developed a summary of the regulations and a list of Frequently Asked Questions. The Department plans to develop a section on its website where it can post the summary, the FAQs, the required forms and other information related to these new regulations, though the site may not be completed by the time the regulations take effect.

To make this information available, the California Workers’ Compensation Institute has posted this material in its website (www.cwci.org) under Newsroom Policy Issues. In addition, the public may access and download the final version of the regulations, which are posted under “Adopted Regs” in the Regs section of the CWCI website.