IWCC's PPP Notification Form Update

The newly appointed IWCC Medical Fee Advisory Board met on Tuesday to discuss both the Preferred Provider Program (PPP) notification form and the potential rate recalculation formulas for the new fee schedule regions effective 1/1/2012.  This post will deal specifically with the PPP notification form.

PPP Notification Form

Once Governor Quinn signed HB 1698 into law, Illinois employers gained the ability to employ a Preferred Provider Program (PPP) to direct their injured workers to participating providers for treatment. In order for employers to implement the PPP direction of care process, HB 1698 lists two basic requirements:

1. The PPP must be approved by the Illinois Department of Insurance (IDOI).
• There is a difference between current IDOI–approved Preferred Provider Program Administrators (PPAs) and the new workers’ compensation Preferred Provider Programs (PPPs).  See our previous PPP updates here & here for more information.
• The IDOI is currently accepting and actively reviewing PPP applications.  We anticipate that the Department will begin to announce approved PPPs in the near future.
2. The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission (IWCC) must promulgate a notification form that the employer will provide to an employee at the time of injury.

The Medical Fee Advisory Board did not come to a consensus regarding the PPP notification form.  There was a potential form distributed at the beginning of the meeting and alternative versions were presented during the course of the discussion.
 
The Board recommends that the final version of the form remains a one page document, but there was a great deal of discussion regarding the language and phrasing for that form.  The objective of the form is to provide an injured employee with the necessary PPP information, contact information, and options regarding opting out of the PPP in a clear and concise manner that will help explain a process that will be foreign to most workers when they are injured on the job. The specific wording to accommodate that objective is still under debate. The Board members are going to review the different versions of the form and recommend changes over the next two weeks.

Mitch Weisz, the IWCC Chairman, stated that their goal was to have a finalized version available to the public by early October.