Workers Compensation Resources – Page 21 – PDRater

5 Reasons Why Your Office Staff Needs PDRater.com

By Jay Shergill Posted on November 12, 2008 Posted in Business, Calculators, EAMS, Free, Javascript, PDRater, Technobabble, Workers Compensation Resources No Comments Tagged with Document Title, Document Type, dwc, Legacy Board, List Of Doctors, Logins, Medical Provider, Name And Address, new year, Number Search, Office Search, Office Staff, Passwords, Phone Number, Point Font, Provider Network, Time And Money, Title Search

In a prior post I talked about the top five PDRater.com features that make your life easier. But, when was the last time you thought about your office staff, hmm?

How can you make their job easier? Well, the good news is you don’t have to, I’ve given you all the tools to make your office run faster and more efficiently, saving you time and money.

Top 5

MPN’s. Medical Provider Network lists, complete with logins and passwords. Whether you’re on the applicant or defense side, your staff is going to need access to these lists. You can find a doctor for your client or so you can give a list of doctors to opposing counsel.
EAMS DWC to ADJ Number Search Engine. Chances are you’ve got cases with more than one “legacy” Board file number. With this search engine, you can search for the corresponding EAMS ADJ numbers. And, you can search for as many Board (or ADJ) numbers as you want at the same time, just by separating them with commas.
EAMS Office Search Engine. When your staff is filling out documents for you, they’re going to need to know the correct name and address for all the parties. When they need to call opposing counsel, they can also look up the phone number with this search engine.
EAMS Document Type and Document Title Search Engine. Your staff needs a quick way to find the exact EAMS document type and EAMS document title for every document cover sheet getting filed with the Board. Sure, they could comb through four or five pages of 3 point font on the Board’s form. Or, better yet, they could search and find exactly the document type and title they need.
EAMS Body Part Codes. There are 62 different body part codes in the EAMS system. There’s no need to keep the EAMS chart on hand, just tell your staff what body part you want on the form and have them look it up on this website.
DWC / WCAB / EAMS Forms. There are now more than 130 different forms, new and “legacy”, available on the DIR website. There’s no reason your staff should have to scroll up or down looking for the right form. Type in a few characters and get a direct link right to the exact form you need.
Date Calculator. Sure, everyone in your office could have their own date wheel. In my experience, date wheels and money charts are two of the most commonly swiped office aides right after the good stapler and scotch tape. With a date calculator built into the website, all of your staff can quickly and easily calculate the number of days between two dates or what day it will be in a certain number of days.

So, there you have the top 5, er 7, PDRater.com website search engine and workers’ compensation calculators your staff is going to benefit from using. Registration for this site is quick, easy, and free. Save your staff some time and frustration by having them register for this website and try out the calculators, search engines, and links.

Daylight Savings Time – The Argument Against

By Jay Shergill Posted on November 7, 2008 Posted in Occupational Code, PDRater, Technobabble No Comments Tagged with Ben Franklin, Bifocals, Daylight Savings Time, Daylight Savings Time Change, Extra Hour, Farmers, Mixed Blessing, new year, Original Photo, Political Climate, Proof, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Wikipedia, William Willett

Perhaps its the political climate, or the recent daylight savings time change, or that I’m an argumentative guy. Today’s post is my argument against daylight savings time. ((I wonder if I should try to put it on the ballot as a proposition…)) ((Original photo courtesy of Laffy4k.))

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Daylight Savings Time was not invented by Benjamin Franklin. ((Third best Ben Franklin quote here.)) ((Second best Ben Franklin quote: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper.”)) ((Best Ben Franklin quote: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Too political for a Friday? :/ )) ((Thanks QuoteDB! )) If Wikipedia is to be further believed, some guy named “William Willett” was the one who thought of it.

Its a mixed blessing for Mr. Willett that no one knows his name. Ben Franklin gets the credit for daylight savings sandwiched between kudos for electric kites and bifocals. Then again, Franklin also has to put up with abuse from people who hate daylight savings. Such as myself.

The Benefits

Set aside for the moment the historical benefits to daylight savings time – the farmers getting out of bed and whatnot. I’ll stipulate that it may have served some terrific purpose yeas ago. The real issue is whether daylight savings time has any ongoing net benefits for our society.

Let’s assume arguendo there are practical benefits to getting everyone in your state to wake up, get home from work, and go to bed an hour earlier or later. They have more “time” to do whatever is they want to do. ((Keep in mind, they get no more than one “extra” hour.)) Let’s even suppose that having an “extra hour” improves the mood of people with seasonal affect disorder. ((Not that I think anyone’s arguing this. I’m just setting up the best possible arguments in favor of daylight savings time.))

The Problems

Infrastructure. You have to admit that a truly Herculean effort is required to support the infrastructure necessary for daylight savings time. People engineer wall clocks that manipulate the time twice a year. Cell phones, computers, and TiVo’s all have to be pre-programmed to change the time twice a year. Its exactly this kind of ridiculous time-accounting nightmare that lead to the Y2K bug in the first place.

Manual Upkeep. All of non-computerized devices such as coffee pots, car stereos, wristwatches, ovens, microwaves, climate control devices, and sprinkler systems need to be manually reset. In this way, daylight savings time is almost like having a guaranteed power outage twice a year.

Productivity. The missed appointments, reschedulings, and groggy commuters and workers. I wouldn’t be surprised if Starbucks was behind the continued use of daylight savings time.

Uniformity. Not every state, let alone every country, uses daylight savings time. What happens why you’re in California and you need to call Hawaii or Arizona before the close of business? ((Those Arizonans really are mavericks.)) ((Or, how about: “Well, I guess Hawaiian and Arizonans are both mavericks!”)) ((Too soon?))

Workers’ Compensation Claims. The workers compensation implications alone are staggering. ((I bet you thought this wasn’t going to have anything to do with workers’ compensation.)) Every home and every office must keep one poor bastard around whose job duties include dragging a chair or step ladder around the office to change all the wall clocks.

If the Office Poor Bastard falls and gets hurt, you’re going to have to hand him a claim form. If the Office Poor Bastard gets an attorney, that attorney is going to see the mechanism of injury and argue for a higher occupational code than “Office Poor Bastard.” ((“211 OFFICE CLERK, GENERAL clerical,” for those of you playing at home.)) ((<shameless plug>I’d suggest this great workers’ compensation website to help you find such things.</shameless plug>)) The Office Poor Bastard will be considered an occupational code 482, “RIGGER, HIGH amuse. & rec.” ((I say this only half-jokingly. Years ago I had someone make this exact argument to me. Ken, I’m looking at you.))

The Solution

There are two possible solutions.

First, we eliminate daylight savings time. If the potential drawbacks of daylight savings time outweigh the benefits, then it should be eliminated it.

Secondly, as an alternative we could agree to set the entire coutnry on the time halfway between daylight savings time and non-daylight savings time. If you get 100% of the benefits and drawbacks from daylight savings time, then at the time halfway in-between you’d get half the benefit and drawbacks. ((This assumes an arithmatic progression of benefits and costs associated with daylight savings time.)) ((This also assumes that no new benefits or costs are conferred by half-daylight savings time. I can concieve of at least one additional drawback – namely that the United States would be in time zones half an hour from the rest of the world. Then again, I suppose that’s better than being a full hour off?))

I’m in favor of eliminating daylight savings time altogether, but I would certainly be willing to “split the baby.”

Best of October 2008

By Jay Shergill Posted on November 3, 2008 Posted in Author, Calculators, PDRater, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources No Comments Tagged with Backpack, Bailout, Barak Obama, Calculator Features, Car Road, Credit Default Swaps, Economic Turmoil, Footnotes, Heathcare, John Mccain, kitten it, Martini, new year, Photoshopped Pictures, Post Mortem, Presidential Election Coverage, Race Cars, road warrior, Search Engines, Second Presidential Debate, Third Presidential Debate, Wooden Arrows

October was another pretty good month for PDRater.com. During the month of October, the traffic for this website increased by about 25%, I added a few new calculator features, I completely changed the look of the website, and we passed the 200 registered users mark. ((At the time of this post, 227 registered users!))

In no particular order, I’m including my favorite “photoshopped” pictures from October on the right side. The footnotes below link to the original photographers. None of them are to blame for the photoediting. ((Special thanks to the kind people who use Flickr for making their photos available for use.)) ((Photos courtesy of richardmasoner, C_Dave, and mikewade.)) ((Photo courtesy of DaveHogg.)) ((Photo courtesy of Daniel Martini.))

Review of Barak Obama’s 10-29-2008 Speech

By Jay Shergill Posted on October 30, 2008 Posted in Not Workers Compensation, Workers Compensation Resources No Comments Tagged with Affordable Health Care, Barak Obama, Billy Mays, Cable Access, Camera Work, Closing Argument, Ford Factory, Live Broadcast, Major Networks, Medical Costs, Plumber, Political Speech, Primetime Television, Reverse Mortgage, Schoolteacher, Television Program, Third Generation, Torn Acl

Obama’s campaign purchased several primetime television slots on the major networks for a half hour broadcast. Those in the Obama campaign have called this program his, “closing argument,” and critics have called it an “infomercial.” ((Photo from MacResource forums. If you own this picture, please let me know so I can attribute you.))

Summary

Obama hit all the high points with this program:

“The American Dream”
Eight years of failed policy
“Middle class”

He reiterated his campaign pitches:

Strengthening the economy
Green technologies
Tax cuts for 90% of Americans
Affordable health care
Affordable higher education

No political speech this year would be complete without your own “Joe the Plumber” story.

Rebecca’s husband who works with a torn ACL because his family cannot afford for him to take time off.
Larry and Juanita Stuart a couple who are still working at 72 even after taking out a reverse mortgage because their planned retirement cannot help with their medical costs.
A special needs schoolteacher working two jobs.
Melinda and Mark, who are third generation Ford factory workers who don’t know what to do now that she lost her job and he only has work every other week.

Review

A long time ago I had an internship with the local cable access company. I took a lot of courses in video editing, lighting, and camera work. I even worked one of the floor cameras on a live broadcast once. Some of the course I took involved planning out how to produce a television program.

The production costs on this program must have been astronomical. Even if you didn’t care for the content, it was beautifully edited and scored. During last night’s “Joe the Plumber” stories you could hear a low dreary soundtrack in the background. When Obama was talking the music would swell as he built his arguments.

If this was an infomercial, its was best goddamn infomercial I’ve ever seen in my life. We should all thank our lucky stars Billy Mays ((Of the OxyClean fame.)) doesn’t have this kind a production crew.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, believed that persuasive arguments could be broken down into three categories: ethos, pathos, and logos. ((Mom, Dad, that dual major in Philosophy and Rhetoric and Communications finally came in handy!!!)) Ethos is based on credibility, pathos on emotion, and logos on logic or reason.

As a piece of persuasive rhetoric ((Rhetoric in and of itself is not bad – its just a means of communication.)) that program had it all. The endorsements from various public figures lent their ethos to Obama. The “Joe the Plumber” pieces about American families certainly provided enough ethos. And, Obama himself laid out his strategic vision for fixing the problems facing those same families.

Obama’s program reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Benjamin Franklin. Franklin enjoyed listening to sermons. Franklin wrote in his autobiography about one such sermon from a Mr. Whitfield.

I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me, I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me asham’d of that, and determin’d me to give the silver; and he finish’d so admirably, that I empty’d my pocket wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.

I imagine Benjamin Franklin would have been willing to empty his pocket all over again for Obama.

Update: If you want to watch the entire broadcast (minus the live 3-4 minute segment at the end), here’s the video:

Two More Calculator Features!

By Jay Shergill Posted on October 27, 2008 Posted in 1997 PDRS, 2005 PDRS, Calculators, Combined Values Chart, Javascript, Multiple Disabilities Table, PDRater, Permanent Partial Disability, Subscription Features, Technobabble, Website Updates, Workers Compensation Resources No Comments Tagged with Calculator Feature, Calculator Features, Cvc, disability calculator, Disability Ratings, Dollar Value, Instances, kitten it, Mdt, Monetary Value, Money Chart, Multiple Disabilities, new year, Permanent Disability, Photo Courtesy, Subscriber

Last week, at the request of a paid subscriber, I added a new permanent disability rating calculator feature. ((Old calculator photo courtesy of ansik.)) ((New calculator photo courtesy of dan taylor.)) Prior users had asked about incorporating an automatic dollar value of permanent disability or “money chart” For the reasons I described in that prior post, I just couldn’t think of a good way to incorporate an automatic calculation of the monetary value of permenant disability.

New Paid Subscriber Feature

Once I added this feature, I realized there were at least two more instances when an automatic calculation of dollar value of permanent disability might come in very handy: when calculating the Multiple Disabilities Table ((1997 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule)) or Combined Value Chart ((2005 Permanent Disability Rating Schedule)) values from combining one or more permanent disability ratings.

Now, when a paid subscriber calculates the CVC or MDT of multiple ratings, the calculated combined rating is fed to the dollar value of permanent disability calculator and the dollar value calculated.

Category: Workers Compensation Resources