Jay Shergill – Page 14 – PDRater – Permanent Disability Calculators

Calculator Useability Update

By Jay Shergill Posted on March 31, 2009 Posted in Calculators, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources No Comments Tagged with cosmetic changes, reorder, useability changes, website update

You may have noticed a few cosmetic changes in the look of the workers’ compensation calculators. ((Photo courtesy of Sock Monkey Photography)) It turns out that some of the calculators are getting a LOT more use than others.

In order to make them a easier to use, I’ve re-ordered all of the calculators in rough order of popularity. ((This change only affects the order in which you see the calculators and has nothing to do with how they work.)) Hopefully you’ll find this helpful. Eventually I plan to separate out all of the EAMS related search functions from the actual benefits calculators.
I’ve found that when you click to expand a calculators it would cause the entire page to scroll to the top. I’ve fixed this.

Send me an e-mail and let me know or leave a comment!

New Ogilvie DFEC Rebuttal Calculator feature!

By Jay Shergill Posted on March 28, 2009 Posted in 1997 PDRS, 2005 PDRS, Almaraz / Guzman, Average Weekly Wage, Business, Calculators, COLA, Combined Values Chart, EAMS, Free, Life Pension, Ogilvie, PDRater, Permanent Disability Rating Schedule, Permanent Partial Disability, Permanent Total Disability, PHP, SAWW, Subscription Features, Technobabble, Temporary Partial Disability, Temporary Total Disability, Wage Loss, Website Updates, Wordpress, Workers Compensation Resources No Comments Tagged with Calculator, California Workers Compensation, Disability, E Mail, En Banc, kitten it, new year, rebut 2005, rebut dfec, rebut pdrs, Rebuttal, wcab en banc

Late last week a user asked for a new feature. ((Thanks Dennis!)) He wanted to be able to perform the Ogilvie DFEC rebuttal calculation and have the results e-mailed to him. ((Photo courtesy of Vernhart)) Well, I built it! ((Why, what did you do with your Saturday morning?))

To e-mail yourself a calculation, perform the calculation as normal. When the website returns your calculation, it will say “E-mail Me!” Just click that button and it will send an e-mail to the address you used to register for this website.

However, here’s the cool part: I’ve installed this new e-mail system into every calculator! ((I haven’t installed it in some of the EAMS lookup functions)) No more having to copy and paste! Just click one button and your calculation will show up in your inbox! ((If you filled in the boxes for Applicant, WCAB #, and File #, it will include this information in your e-mail as well. This is only for your convenience and not a requirement.))

Although I intend this to be a paid-subscription-only feature, I am going to leave it open for all users while I get some feedback. So, what do you think? Please leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail!

WordPress – Not Just For Kids Any More!

By Jay Shergill Posted on March 27, 2009 Posted in Business, Free, MySQL, Not Workers Compensation, Open Source, PDRater, PHP, Search Engine Ranking, SEO, Technobabble, Wordpress No Comments Tagged with Big Time, Designers, Microsoft, Microsoft Sql Database, Ms Sql, Php Mysql, Sql Microsoft, Sql Servers, Wordpress

A friend of mine owns and operates a number of websites – all of which run on ASP/.NET/MS-SQL servers. He knows what he’s talking about, but he’s fairly dismissive of WordPress, PHP, and MySQL.

All this time I’ve been raving about WordPress, telling him that you can basically do anything with it. I’ve mentioned how easy it is to use, how easy it is to maintain, its open source, how many global corporations use WordPress to build their websites, how its the tool of choice for so many designers, and how huge the WordPress community is.

In the meantime, he’s referring to his millions of rows in his “real-SQL, MicroSoft SQL” database. I believe he’s been stuck thinking of PHP and MySQL as “kiddie” stuff, just not ready for big time.

That is, he’s been dismissive of WordPress until about two months ago. In the last two months other people (SEO consultants, professional designers) have been raving about WordPress to him too.

I think he’s finally coming around.

Drooling over the Dell Mini 9

By Jay Shergill Posted on March 24, 2009 Posted in Laptop, Not Workers Compensation, Open Source, OpenOffice, Technobabble No Comments Tagged with Computer Dell, E Mail, Filezilla, netbook, Netbooks, Next Computer, Notepad, OpenOffice, Operating System, Pidgin, Price Tag, Programming Text, Remote Access, Sd Card Slot, Spreadsheets, Thunderbird, Word Processing

Since I reviewed available netbooks about two months back several new options have opened up. ((Photo courtesy of Ciccio Pizzettaro)) There’s the new Samsung NC110 ((The Samsung NC110 is the successor to the NC10)) ((A review of the NC110 I found helpful)) and a slew of new Acer One’s.

However, none of them can touch the 4GB Dell Mini 9 on sale right now for $199 with Ubuntu.

I know I had earlier said that 8GB was too small for my purposes. I had even suggested that I was more interested in some of the other available netbooks over the Dell for this reason. However, I want to make my next computer a Dell, true to my word.

The reason I’m considering the 4GB version where I was dismissing the 8GB version before is the incredible price and the purposes to which such a laptop would be put. In order to do about 98% of what I need with a laptop, I could easily use a netbook. On any given day I use:

Firefox for web browsing
Thunderbird for e-mail
Pidgin for instant messaging
FileZilla for FTP transfers
Notepad++ for programming/text editing
OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheets
TightVNC for remote access

All of these programs are open source software and available for Ubuntu ((An easy-to-use Liniux installation.)) and Windows. So, in shopping for a laptop, I really don’t care about which operating system I use. The 4GB Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu could do all of these things – and for a $199 price tag. Plus, with the Mini’s SD card slot, I could pop in an extra 16GB of memory for only $26.

How has Almaraz/Guzman changed workers’ compensation?

By Jay Shergill Posted on March 23, 2009 Posted in 2005 PDRS, Almaraz / Guzman, AMA Guides, Workers Compensation Resources No Comments Tagged with 2005, almaraz, almarazguzman, almarez, almarez-guzman, ama 5th, Ama Guide, Ama Guidelines, analogize, Attorneys, Discovery, Doctors, En Banc, Evaluator, guzaman, guzman, impairment ratings, Pdrs, substantial medical evidence, Wcab

Clearly, Almaraz/Guzman has been a boon to the U.S. Postal Service. I’ve been receiving Almaraz/Guzman letters from Applicant attorneys on my files ever since the en banc decision came out. These letters typically fall into one of three categories:

Increased demands for settlement
Demands for additional discovery per Almaraz/Guzman
Letters to the PQME/AME requesting their opinions on impairment outside the AMA Guidelines to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, Fifth Edition

I’ve also heard of some doctors completely abandoning the AMA Guidelines to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, Fifth Edition, in favor of just analogizing impairment. This is not what was intended by the en banc panel in WCAB in Almaraz/Guzman.

Here’s what Almaraz/Guzman means for workers’ compensation practitioners:

It doesn’t mean you ignore the AMA Guidelines 5th Edition
It doesn’t mean you ignore the 2005 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule
You don’t apply the 1997 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule
The evaluator may analogize impairments not addressed by the AMA Guides
Before a doctor may analogize impairments, they must first assign impairment under the AMA Guides

So, remember:

Whether you agree with the AMA Guides or the 2005 PDRS they’re still the law of the land and must be addressed.
Whether you agree with Almaraz/Guzman, it’s still good law and must be addressed.
Almaraz/Guzman does not absolve a doctor from the responsibility to generate a medical report which addresses the AMA Guides and constitutes substantial medical evidence.

Author: Jay Shergill