**Office of Workman's Compensation Programs (OWCP)**

**Training for Employees**

**BLM National Training Center Telecast**

**May 8, 1997**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, \"OWCP and
You,\" an Interactive Seminar for Employees on Safety, Workers
Compensation, and BLM\'s Back‑to‑work Policy. And Now the Host of Your
Program, Carolyn Burrell.

Burrell: Good Morning. Welcome to Our Satellite Workshop on the OWCP and
BLM\'s New Back‑to‑work Policy. As Employees, You at the Are the Bureau
of Land Management\'s Most Vital Resource. The Skills of Our Workers
Allow BLM to Accomplish its Mission. We Are Fewer in Number than in Past
Years. So Our Challenge Is to Be More Productive. Many Things Can
Contribute to Higher Productivity. One of These Measures Is Simply To
Keep Employees Safe in the Workplace So They Can Do Their Jobs Without
Injury. When Lost Time Accidents Occur As They Inevitably Will, We Will
Need to Get People Back on the Job as Soon as Possible. First, Let\'s
Look at the Objective for Today\'s Training. Our Objective Is to
Emphasize The Critical Importance of Preventing Accidents in the
Workplace. Also to Show You What You Should Do If Injured on the Job.
And How BLM Is Striving to Get Injured Employees Back to Work As Quickly
as Possible. Joining Me for Our First Segment Today to Talk about Safety
in The Work Force Is Yogi Neilsen. He\'s the Safety Manager from BLM\'s
Alaska State Office. Welcome, Yogi.

Nielsen: I\'m Pleased to Be Here, Carolyn. I Think We\'ve Got Some Real
Good Information to Pass onto the Folks Today.

Burrell: Good. I Agree. You Have Been Here for a Few Days in Phoenix.
Have You Gotten Adjusted to Our Weather Here?

Nielsen: They Tell Me It\'s Pleasant at Home and the Heat Finally ‑‑ I
Haven\'t Been Overcome Yet but It\'s More than I Can Handle.

Burrell: I Am Sure You Are Looking Forward to Getting Back To Alaska.
From the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. We Have Ralph Slighter
Here. Ralph Is the Technical Advisor For OWCP.

Slighter: I\'m Glad to Be Here. I Have a Little Bit Different
Perspective for this Presentation. I\'m from the Department of Labor And
I Think That We Have Some Interesting Information That We\'re Going to
Share Both with Employees and with ‑‑ Any of Those Others Watching.

Burrell: Good. I Agree. We\'re Really Looking Forward to Your
Presentation Today. We Also Have with Us the Director of BLM\'s National
Human Resources Management Center, Linda Sedbrook, Who Is Joining Our
Panel as Well. Welcome, Linda.

Sedbrook: Thank You, Carolyn. I Am Looking Forward Today to Presenting
this Information to The Employees.

Burrell: Good. Thank You. I Know You\'re Also Looking Forward to Getting
Back to Denver and a Little Bit Cooler Weather.

Sedbrook: a Little Bit Cooler In Denver, Yes.

Burrell: Before We Begin Our Discussion, I Would like to Mention That
Throughout this Program You Will Be Able to Communicate with Us via
Telephone and Fax Using the Numbers Provided to Your Offices. You Can
Send Us a Faxed Question At Any Time. Please Use the Form Provided to
Your Office. Print Your Name, Print Your Question with a Dark Marker,
and Be Sure to Include the Phone Number in Your Viewing Room in Case We
Want to Get Back with You on the Air. You May Call Us Whenever You Like.
Our Operators Are Standing By. In Most Cases, However, We Will Only Be
Putting Calls on the Air During Our Scheduled Interactive Segments.
However, We Will Try to Get to Your Calls as Quickly as Possible. To
Kick Things Off, Mat Millenbach, BLM\'s Deputy Director, Has Prepared a
Few Remarks about BLM BLM\'s Safety And OWCP Policy and Helping Injured
Employees Return to Work.

Millenbach: Good Morning. Thanks for Taking the Time to Participate in
this Office of Workman\'s Compensation Training Program. I Would like to
Talk to You About the BLM\'s New Approach to Returning Injured Employees
Back To Work. You\'re Going to Be Instructed on Accident Prevention and
the Bureau\'s Policy for Helping Injured Employees Getting Back To Work
as Quickly as Possible. I Strongly Endorse this New Approach. Year in
and Year Out, BLM Pays a High Price for Work‑related Injuries. When an
Accident Happens That Takes a Person Away from Their Job for More than a
Few Days, The Results Can Be Devastating To the Employee and Have
Serious Consequences in the Workplace. The Injured Person Suffers If
Physical Pain and Family Members Are Affected as Routines Change To Cope
with the Impacts of the Injury. The Injured Employee\'s Workplace Is
Also Affected. Efficiency and Customer Service Are Impacted as Work Gets
Spread Around to Co‑workers and Time Is Lost on Investigation, Paper
Work, Recruiting for a Replacement and So Forth. The Injury May Also
Have a Significant Monetary Cost to BLM. In Recent Years Our Reported
Injury Related Costs Have Averaged about 5½ Million Dollars per Year.
You\'re BLM\'s Most Valuable Resource. Your Talents and Skills Allow
This Agency to Accomplish its Mission. Our Challenge Is to Get Better At
Preventing Accidents, Minimize the Impacts of Accidents Which Do Occur,
and Help Each Other to Be Safe and Healthy in Our Work. This Training
Session Will Help Us to Meet That Challenge. Thank You.

Burrell: We Appreciate Mat Telling Us That BLM Top Leadership Is
Committed to Reducing Our OWCP Costs and Helping Injured Employees
Return To Work. Yogi, What about the Role Safety Plays in Reducing on
the Job Injuries?

Nielsen: Well, Carolyn, Safety Plays a Very Important Role in Reducing
Injuries. My Presentation Will Focus on Giving You, BLM\'s Employees,
the Information You Need to Understand Just What the BLM Requires from
You as Your Part In the Safety Process. Just as the Bureau Is Required
To Provide You with Safe and Healthful Place to Work, You Have a
Definite Role in the Proactive Safety Process. You must Work with Your
Supervisor in Completing an Accurate Job Hazard Analysis. This Means
That You and Your Supervisor must Identify Foreseen Hazards That You Can
Expect to Encounter When Doing Your Job. You\'ll Agree on How to Best
Lessen Those Hazards and Follow Those Processes Diligently. Some Hazards
in Office Settings Are Lifting Incorrectly, Trips And Falls, and
Repetitive Motion Injuries. If Your Job Changes, a New Hazard Analysis
must Be Done. You Have the Responsibility to Attend and Participate in
Safety Training Provided by the Bureau. Training in the Performance of
Your Job Will Have a Strong Safety Component. There Are Also Specific
Safety And Health Training Subjects That Osha Requires of All Federal
Employees. An Active Participation in These Classes Is Required and a
Record Must Be Kept of Your Attendance. You Also must Sign a Statement
That You\'ve Been Trained in the Use of Personal Protective Equipment,
Ppe. That\'s Required to Do Your Job. You must Also Recognize When it
Needs Replacing and Bring That To the Attention of Your Supervisor.
Finally, You must Be Ready to Question Any Unforeseen or Unusual
Situations That Occur on The Job. Many Thing That Will Come up Are
Easily Handled Using Common Sense. But Some Things That Occur Will Nag
You with a Possibility That Something Untoward or Bad Will Result. In
These Cases, Back Away and Seek Other Counsel. Don\'t Get in over Your
Head in Work Situations. The Bureau Is Paying You to Do Things Right,
and That Means Safely. Now Let\'s Look at Your Responsibilities to
Yourself and Your Family. We in the Safety Business Often Hear the
Complaint That the Bureau Hired Us to Fight Fire, Drive a Truck, Be a
Surveyor. Why Don\'t They Just Let Me Do My Job. Nobody Leaves Home with
the Thought \"Well, I Think I\'ll Hurt Myself Today.\" Those Close to
You Expect You to Return Home in the Same Good Condition That You Left
In. A Can‑do Attitude Is an Admirable Trait as Long as it Doesn\'t Lend
Itself to a Casual Approach to the Safety Process. Make No Mistake, the
Bureau Insists That Safety Is an Integral Part of Every Job Process, and
That If it Isn\'t, The Job Isn\'t Being Done Correctly. So What Are Your
Responsibilities When You Have An Accident? First, Make Sure You Receive
Medical Assistance If Necessary. If the Accident Has Medical
Ramifications Beyond First Aid, There Are Two Separate Reporting
Requirements That must Be Followed, Both of Which Begin With Notifying
Your Supervisor. You Will Learn More about the Reports That Mug to
Personnel in A Few Minutes ‑‑ must Go to Personnel in a Few Minutes.
Safety Is Concerned with How We Can Prevent Accidents like Yours From
Happening Again. We Need to Work Together to Fix The Process, and for
this to Happen, We Need to Know the Facts of the Accident So We Can Look
at Every Part. You Are in the Position to Get Some of the Most Needed
and Accurate Information Concerning The Accident. Your Supervisor Will
Need this Information as He or She Inputs The Information into the
Safety Management Information System. Were There Skid Marks? Was it
Raining or Snowing? Did You Trip Because of a Loose Rug or Impediment in
the Aisle? All of this Type of Information Will Assist Us in Determining
How to Tweak the Process to Keep It from Happening Again. Remember,
There\'s No Way the Bureau Can Accomplish its Objectives Without You,
the Employee. For Your Sake, Your Family\'s Sake, and the Bureau\'s
Sake, Let\'s Be Careful out There.

Burrell: Yogi, You Mentioned A Job Hazard Analysis. What If I Don\'t
Have a Job Hazard Analysis That\'s Been Done On My Position?

Nielsen: If You Are Working At the Job Right Now and You Don\'t Have a
Hazard Analysis, One of the Things That Is Your Responsibility Is to Get
with Your Supervisor. I Know That the Supervisors Are Spread Pretty Thin
and the Team Lead or Whoever Can Sit down With You and They\'ll Be Able
to Explain Those Things That Can Be A Danger in Your Job That You\'re
Doing. They Have to Sign That They Have Given You this. Osha\'s New
Regulations Make the Supervisor and the Employee Both Sign That They
Have Given That Information out and That the Employee Has to Sign to See
That ‑‑ Say That He\'s Aware of That And How to Use the Equipment That
It\'s Going to Take to Keep Him from Getting Hurt.

Burrell: Okay, Good. You Also Said Something about Personal Protective
Equipment. How Soon Should an Employee Have Training on Personal
Protective Equipment after They\'ve Come on Board?

Nielsen: That\'s a Good Question, Carolyn. A Person Should Have the
Training in the Personal Protective Equipment Before They Ever Go out to
the Job. Now, One of the Things That a Lot of Employees ‑‑ \"Well, I
Know How to Use That Chainsaw And I Don\'t Need to Wear this Protective
Chaps to Keep My Leg From Getting Cut Because I Am Just Going to Use it
a Short Time.\" Well, If You Haven\'t Had That Information, You Need to
Know Now That You Have to Have That Personal Protective Equipment on And
That\'s for Your Own Good.

Burrell: Does this Apply to All Employees, Seasonals, Temporaries,
Permanent?

Nielsen: Seasonals and Temporaries, Permanents, Everybody That Does Work
for the Bureau, and That\'s Volunteers Also Have to Have That Training
Before They Do Any of the Work.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much, Yogi. Now We Would like to Shift Our Focus
to OWCP Procedures. Ralph and Linda Will Now Give Us An Overview of the
Department of Labor\'s Program and What You Should Do If You Are Injured
on The Job. Ralph, Let\'s Begin with You.

Slighter: Thank You. There Are Some Things That Occur On the Job That
Sometimes Are Unavoidable. Sometimes You Are Going to Have Injuries,
Despite the Best Efforts of Your Safety Manager, Your Safety Officer, at
the Agency. That\'s Where We at the Office of Workers\' Compensation
Program, Department of Labor, Come In. That\'s Who I Work For, and One
Of Our Responsibilities Is to Process Those Claims That Come In. But
There Are Other Parties in The Process That Have Certain Levels of
Responsibilities. It\'s Not like When the Injury Occurs You Just Hand it
over to Us and We Take Care of Most of It. In Fact, a Lot of the
Different Areas of Responsibility Are with Either You the Employee or
Your Physician or the Agency, and What I Want to Do Is First of All
Summarize Certain Areas of Responsibilities When an Employee Is Injured.
The First Area of Responsibility That I Want to Talk about Is Indeed the
Employee. Your Supervisor Is Not Going to Come up to You and Say on a
Daily Basis, \"Who Had an Injury Today?\" You Need to Report That
Information to the Supervisor, To Someone at Your Agency Who Is Normally
Going to Be a Supervisor Who Is Going to Be Able to Do Something about
It, Because They\'re Not Going to Come to You and Ask You about That
Type of Situation. Sometimes You Have Employees Who Say, \"Oh, It\'s Not
Hurt So Bad, It\'s Only Broken in One or Two Places, I Won\'t Bother
Reporting That.\" Clearly in a Serious Accident, Sometimes Even in Minor
Accidents, You Need to Be Reporting That to the Supervisor. Initially
It\'s Going to Be Verbally, and If It\'s Serious Enough, and We Will
Talk about How You Do That Later On, You Will Have to Report That in
Writing. There Are Other Areas of Responsibility You Have as Well. You
Are the One Who Chooses the Doctor. In Many Cases You Are Responsible
for Letting the Doctor Know They Are Going to Have to Send in
Information to Us at the Department of Labor And You Are Going to Have
to Complete the Necessary Paper Work. Yogi Talked about Some of the
Safety Office Perspective. From the Department of Labor\'s Perspective,
There Is a Notice Of Injury Form, a Form Ca‑1 You Will Have to Fill out
and We Will Talk about That in Detail In a Few Minutes. There Are Other
Areas of Responsibility as Well. One of Those Is the Responsibility of
the Employing Agency. They Have Certain Responsibilities When an Injury
Has Occurred. Once You Notify Them of the Injury, There Is a BLM Support
Team, Which Includes Your Supervisor, Your Personnel Office, the OWCP
Coordinator for Your Specific Facility. Each One of Those Has
Responsibilities. When You Are Injured on the Job, You Don\'t Submit the
Paper Work Directly to the Department of Labor. You Submit it to Your
Agency. They Need to Verify That You, Indeed, Were Working for Them When
You Were Injured, and They Have Information That We Need Such as Pay
Rate and Health Benefits Information. So You Submit the Paper Work
Through Your Agency. Generally That\'s Going to Be Through Your
Supervisor. They Fill out a Lot of the Other Necessary Paper Work and
Send it On to Us. If You Need Medical Attention, They Will Arrange for
You in Some, Way, Shape or Form to Get The Medical Attention Provided
You Tell Them That\'s What You Need. There Are Other Parties That Have
Responsibilities as Well. Clearly, the Doctors Who Are Involved in It.
The Medical Providers Have Certain Responsibilities. You Are Going to Go
to a Doctor. If Your Injury Is Serious Enough That Medical Treatment Is
Required. They Need to Submit a Medical Report. The Report Generally
Speaking Should First Be Submitted to the Employing Agency. We at the
Department of Labor, If the Claim Is Submitted to Us, Need a Copy as
Well. Doctors Usually Know That. They Know That Because They Don\'t Get
Paid until They Submit A Medical Report. You Will Notice the Doctors Are
Very Interested in Getting Paid Or Hospitals or Whoever the Medical
Provider Happens to Be. So They Have Certain Responsibilities, the
Primary One, Other than Giving You the Medical Care, Is Providing
Medical Documentation to the Agency and to Us at the Department of
Labor. The Final Area of Responsibility Is Us at the Department of
Labor. The Office of Workers\' Compensation Program. We Have Certain
Responsibilities. When an Injury Occurs, Clearly We Have a
Responsibility to Make A Prompt, Proper Decision on the Claim. That May
Be a Negative Decision. We Do Deny Claims at the Department of Labor.
But Once We Approve a Claim, We Also Have Responsibilities to Promptly
Pay Claims That Come In. We Will Review Those Claims, for Example,
Medical Bills. We Will Only Pay Those Conditions Related to an Injury.
That\'s Why Once You Have a Job Related Injury You Keep Your Health
Insurance Carrier Because You Submit Bills to Them Not Related to a Job
Injury. We Have a Job to Make Sure We Do So as Quickly as Possible,
Paying the Bills Related. So Those Are the Different Areas Of
Responsibilities. I Think You Also Need to Know About the Benefits That
Are Payable. Given Our Limited Time I Am Not Going to Talk about Every
Single Benefit but You Need to Know About the Major Benefits Payable In
Workers\' Compensation. I Am Going to Summarize Those For You. The First
Benefit I Am Going to Talk about Is Not Even Actually Paid by the
Department of Labor. It\'s a Benefit Called Continuation of Pay. You
Will Hear Me Abbreviate it As C.o.p. Throughout this Presentation and
Continuation of Pay Is Actually Paid by BLM, by The Agency for Certain
Injuries, And I Will Give You the Qualifications in a Few Minutes, For
up to 45 Days of Your Regular Salary. Think about That\... If You\'re
Injured on the Job and You Have To Miss a Week or Two Because of That
Injury, You Don\'t Have to Take Sick Oriole Leave, You Don\'t Have to Go
into a Leave Without Pay Status. You Get Your Regular Salary as If You
Were Working. All the Regular Deductions, Taxes, Health Benefits,
Allotments and So Forth Are Taken out of Your Continuation Of Pay. It Is
Not for Every Injury Which Occurs on the Job. As I Said Before, There
Are a Few Limitations. I Want You as Employees to Know About Those
Limitations Because If You\'re Injured on the Job, There May Be Some
Circumstances Where You\'re Not Eligible for Continuation of Pay. To
Give You the First Limitation I Am Going to Give You Two Definitions. We
at the Department of Labor Recognize Two Major Categories Of Job‑related
Conditions. One Is Called Traumatic Injury And the Other Is Called an
Occupational Disease. Traumatic Injury Is Most of Our Cases, 90% of Our
Cases. They Occur Within the Space of One Working Day, Usually Either
One Incident, Slip, Trip, Fall, Vehicle Accident, Things like That, or a
Series of Incidents Within One Day. Occupational Diseases Take, by
Definition, More than One Day to Develop. Typical Occupational Diseases
Might Include Repetitive Motion Syndrome, Stress Claims, Hearing Loss
Claims, Exposure to Dust, Fumes, Chemicals. They Take More than One Day
to Develop and We Will Cover at Department of Labor Both of Those
Categories of Injuries With One Exception. The Exception Is Continuation
of Pay. Only Traumatic Injuries Qualify You for Continuation of Pay. If
You Have an Occupational Disease You Have to Go into a Leave Status or
Leave Without Pay Stat Us and Wait for Us the Department of Labor to
Approve Payment of Wage Loss Benefits. But for Traumatic Injuries You
Can Get up to 45 Days. Now Think, Most Injuries Aren\'t That Serious.
Half the Injuries We Get Involve Medical Expenses Only. Of the Ones That
Involve Lost Time, the Average Lost Time Injury Involves Nine Days
Absence from Work. So Usually You Are Going to Go Back to Work Well
Beyond the 45 Days. It\'s Not a Guaranteed 45 Days. It\'s a Maximum. So
If the Doctor Says You Can Go Back to Work in a Week, You Don\'t Get an
Automatic 45 Days. You Go Back to Work Within a Week. You Also Have to
File for it Within 30 Days. Verbal Notification in That Case Is Not
Sufficient. You Have to Use the Ca‑1 Form, The Notice of Injury Form
That We Will Talk about in a Few Minutes. And You Have to Use up this
45‑day Period Within a 90‑daytime Frame from the Day of Injury. I Will
Tell You I Am Going to Explain How That Works in a Few Minutes but I
Will Tell You That There Are Some Cases Where You Will Actually Not Be
Entitled to Continuation of Pay Even When a Traumatic Injury Occurs
Because There\'s a Process in Workers\' Compensation Called
Controversion Where the Agency Disagrees with the Validity of The Claim.
They May Question Whether You\'re Eligible for Continuation of Pay And
under Certain Circumstances, Those Circumstances Are Outlined Actually
on the Instruction Sheet to Form Ca‑1, They Can Deny Your Continuation
of Pay. But If Continuation of Pay Is Payable, it Can Be Paid for up To
90 Days Following Your First Return to Work. I Am Going to Use a
Graphics Demonstration to Illustrate How That Works. The Illustration
You See on the Screen, the Employee Is Injured On July 23rd and Then
Misses 8 Days in July, Four More Days in August and Comes Back to Work
on August 5th. That\'s 12 Days. In That 12‑day Period Is Covered By
Continuation of Pay. The Employee Works from August 5th Through October
8th. And Starts Missing Work on October 9th. Once Again Misses it from
the 9th to the 24th, a 16‑day Period. Comes Back to Work on the 25th And
Misses Again on the 30th and 31st of October. So That\'s a Total of 8
Day Ins July, 4 Days in August, Which Is 12 and 18 More in October in
Two Different Periods for a Grand Total of 32 Days. Each One of Those 32
Days Is Covered by Continuation of Pay. It Does Not Have to Be in That
Case Consecutive So Long as You Use it up Within 90 Days of Your First
Return to Duty Date. I\'m Also Going to Give You Another Example. It
Doesn\'t Even Have to Be a Full Day That You Use Continuation of Pay. It
Could Be a Partial Day. You Could, for Example, Have Physical Therapy
Where You Have To See the Doctor Two Hours a Day and Maybe Three Days a
Week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The Example You Are Going to See On the
Screen, the Employee Uses Two Hours of Continuation Pay, 6 Hours of Work
on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Each One of the Two Hours of Continuation
Pay Is Paid by the Agency. You Don\'t Have to Use Your 6 Oriole Leave to
Go for Physical Therapy for Job‑related Injuries So Long as the 45‑day
Limit Isn\'t Exceeded or the 90‑daytime Frame Isn\'t Exceeded as Well.
In Fact, If You Use Continuation Of Pay for Those Two Hours and Want to
Take off for the Rest of The Day, You Don\'t Get the Other Six Hours of
Continuation of Pay. You Take off and Maybe Might Want to Use Annual
Leave. You Only Get That Period Which Is Supported by Medical Evidence.
But That Two Hours Counts as One Full Day of the Maximum 45 Payable. So
this Is Continuation of Pay. It\'s a Fairly Liberal Benefit in That You
Suffer No Reduction Because of a Job‑related Injury. In Fact, 85% of the
Injuries We Get, the Employee Never Goes Beyond the 45 Days of
Continuation of Pay. That\'s Not the Only Benefit Payable. It\'s the
First One and an Important One and You Need to Know about That and If
You Are Eligible for this Benefit Because You Can\'t Work as a Result of
a Job‑related Injury Can You Get in the Cases I Have Cited Continuation
of Pay. The Second Benefit, and All the Other Benefits I Am Going to
Talk About, Are Actually Paid by The Department of Labor. The First One
Is Called Compensation. That\'s Compensation for Wage Loss. If You
Can\'t Work Because of a Job‑related Injury after the 45‑day Period in a
Traumatic Injury Case or Immediately in Occupational Disease Cases,
You\'re Eligible for Compensation. Compensation Is Paid at a Percentage
of Your Salary. If You\'re ‑‑ the Salary Is Based On Your Pay Rate at
the Date of Injury. If You Have No Dependents It\'s Two‑thirds. If You
Have One or More Dependents, Spouse, Children Under the Age of 18,
Wholly Dependent Parent, That\'s 3 Quarters of Your Salary. The Only
Deductions We Take from It Are Health Benefits and Life Insurance. That
Seems like a Pretty Dramatic Cut in Your Salary. I Know a Lot of You
Wouldn\'t Like to Have a Pay Cut of a Third or a Quarter. But Keep in
Mind Workers\' Compensation Benefits Are by and Large Exempt from
Federal and State Income Taxes and We Don\'t Take out Things like
Retirement, Social Security, Medicare Allotments, All Those Things. You
Can Figure out from Your Own Salary That\'s Going to Be about The Same
Pay Rate as If You Were Injured ‑‑ as If You Were Never Injured and
Continuing to Work. We\'re Not Penalizing Employees Because They\'ve Had
a Job‑related Injury. As Long as Medical Evidence Supports Disability,
Compensation Is Payable. We Don\'t Have a 45‑daytime Frame Limitation or
a One‑year or Anything like That. If You\'re Disabled and You Can\'t
Work, Compensation Is Payable. We at the Department of Labor Pay It. You
You Apply to Us. If We Approve the Claim, We Will Instruct the Treasury
to Issue a Check. Keep in Mind from a Financial Standpoint, it Doesn\'t
Come out Of the Department of Labor\'s Budget. It Comes out of BLM\'s
Budget. Your Agency Actually Pays for The Costs of Your Workers\'
Compensation Programs. That\'s One Reason Why as You\'ll See Later on
They Have an Interest in Trying to Get You Back to Work as Soon as
Possible, and We Encourage That Interest. When You Have a Situation
Where The Employee Is Capable of Coming Back to Work, You Easily Can
Come Back to Work in That Case. When You Have an Employee Eligible for
Compensation, You File for It. If We Approve It, We Are Going To Pay
Compensation Benefits. There Are Other Benefits Payable As Well and I
Want You to Be Familiar with Those. One of Them Is in the Area of
Medical Benefits. When You Have an Employee Who Is Eligible for Medical
Benefits, We\'re Going to Pay the Doctor\'s Bills That Come out of That,
Whether They Be for Hospitalization, Surgery, Doctor\'s Bills, Even Such
Things As Drug Reimbursements, Travel To and from the Doctor. That\'s
All in the Area of Medical Benefits. Unlike Your Insurance Carrier Where
You Have a Situation Where You Have Co‑payments and Deductibles, it
Doesn\'t Work That Way with Workers\' Compensation. Doctor Submits a
Bill for \$200. You Won\'t Have to Pay a Penny of That. Now, We Do Have
a Fee Schedule And it May Be That, for Example, The Doctor Is Going to
Say \"My Bill Is for 200 and Our Fee Schedule Says You Are Only Going To
Get 150. We Will Issue a Check in That Case for \$150. But the Doctor
Cannot Bill the Patient for the Difference. He must Accept Our Payment
as Payment in Full. It\'s a Medical Terminology Known As Assignment. You
Won\'t Be Build for Any ‑‑ Billed for Costs Related to to a Job Injury.
You Keep Your Health Insurance Coverage Because We Won\'t Pay For
Medical Costs Unrelated to The Job Injury. But If They Are Related,
Those Costs Are Payable under Workers\' Compensation. There Is One Other
Benefit I Want You to Be Familiar with as Well, and That Is Something I
Hope You Never Have to Worry About, but That\'s Death Benefits. If You
Die as a Result of a Job‑related Injury, Your Survivors Are Eligible for
Death Benefits. You and BLM, for Example, Travel Quite a Lot on the Job
and That\'s Our Most Common Cause of Death Claims That Are Filed and
That Is Vehicle Accidents, Whether it Be Airplane, Car, Boat, Truck,
Whatever. If You\'re Involved in an Automobile Accident and There\'s A
Fatality Your Survivors Are Eligible for Death Benefits. For the Widow
That\'s 50% ‑‑ ‑‑ 50% of the Husband\'s Salary or The Other Way Around,
Widower, 50% of the Wife\'s Salary. If He or She Does Not Remarry Prior
to the Age of 55 Those Benefits Continue for Life. For Children, There
Are Additional Benefits. If You Have a Widow and Two Children, for
Example, That\'s 75%. That\'s the Maximum Payable. For Children, Those
Benefits Continue until They Turn 18 or If They\'re in College until
They Turn 23. You and in BLM May Remember That Forest Fire That Occurred
in Colorado a Few Years Ago. There Were 17 Fatalities. We Are Still
Paying Death Benefits in Those Cases Because The Widows Claim Death
Benefits. You Cannot Get a Survivor\'s Annuity at the Same Time as Your
OWCP Death Benefits but Could You Get Your Settlements from Your Life
Insurance and Workers\' Compensation Benefits at the Same Time. If It\'s
a Job‑related Fatality We Are Going to Pay for Death Benefits. There Are
Other Benefits Payable As Well. Vocation Rehabilitation, Relocation,
Expenses, Things Like That. Again, We\'re Not Going to Get Into Every
Single Benefit We Talk About, but You Have Heard About the Major Ones,
Continuation of Pay, Compensation, Medical Benefits And Death Benefits.
Now, in Order to Get Those Nice Benefits, However, There Are Certain
Requirements That You Need to Know about. Not Everything That Happens on
The Job Is Going to Be Covered. I Am Going to Give You Some Examples in
a Few Minutes Where You May Have an Incident That Occurs Right While
You\'re Working and We\'re Going to Say That\'s Not Covered under
Workers\' Compensation. I Will Briefly Summarize. I Am Going to Give
this to You In about Five Minutes or So. This Is the Same Presentation
That When I Was a Trainer for Claims Examiners I Gave in a Week. Clearly
You Are Going to Get an Abbreviated Version but I Think You Need to Know
What the Requirements Are for Workers\' Compensation Coverage. First of
All, If You\'re Injured On the Job, We Will Cover You Only If You Are a
Federal Employee. We Don\'t Cover Military, We Don\'t Cover People Who
Come onto The Premises of BLM Property Who Are Not Employees, We Don\'t
Cover Contractors, Basically They Have Coverage or State Workers\'
Compensation. But If You Are a Federal Employee, Whether That Be Career,
Career Conditional, Part Time, Seasonal, Stay in School, Volunteer, We
Cover Volunteers, Each One of Those Is Going to Be Covered as a Federal
Employee. With Volunteers We Probably Have A Little Difficulty in
Figuring Out What You Pay Them, Two‑thirds or 3 Quarters of Nut
Something Still Nothing but We Have a Formula by Which We Can Go into
Calculations for Volunteers. But We Do, Indeed, Cover Federal Employees.
There Is No Minimum Length of Service. You Could Be Working for Three
Days and Get the Same Level of Benefits as Someone Who Had Been Working
for 30 Years, Assuming You Had the Same Salary. Most of the Cases That
We Have, That\'s Not Normally Going to Be A Problem. The Second
Requirement, And, Again, We Don\'t Normally Have a Problem with This, Is
in the Area of Time. There Are Two Specific Time Limitations for
Workers\' Compensation Coverage. One, We Have Already Told You About.
You Have to File for Continuation of Pay Within 30 Days. It Has to Be in
Writing. Verbal Is Not Sufficient. The Second Time Requirement Is For
Any of the Other Benefits, Wage Loss Compensation, Medical Benefits,
Death Benefits, et Cetera, and That\'s Three Years, You Have to File
Within Three Years of the Injury. Remember I Told You That with
Occupational Diseases by Definition You Have More than One Date of
Injury. With Occupational Diseases It\'s Three Years from Your Last Date
Of Exposure or Date of Awareness, Whichever Comes Later. Again, Most
Cases We Don\'t Have To Worry about That. The Time ‑‑ the Claim Is Going
To Be Filed Well Within the 30‑daytime Frame for Continuation of Pay or
Three Years for the Other Benefits. The Third Requirement and One I Will
Spend a Little Bit More Time about Is Something That We Call Fact of
Injury. With Fact of Injury You Have a Situation by Which We Have to
Establish That You Have a Injury Which Is Has Resulted in Measurable
Physical Disability. You Can\'t Claim Something or Can\'t Get Benefits
or Something Which Has Not Occurred. For Example, If You Claim an Injury
on May 23rd and May 23rd Is What You Tell the Doctor as Well, You Put
That down on the Notice of Injury Form, Your Supervisor Checks Your Time
Records and Finds out That May 23rd Is Not Your Scheduled Work Day. Not
Only That, You Didn\'t Come In for Work on That Day on Overtime or
Volunteer Basis or Anything like That. You Have a Problem. Under Those
Circumstances, Clearly, No Injury Occurred on May 23rd. It Also Becomes
an Issue When You Hurt Yourself, Let\'s Say It\'s a Minor Injury, and
You Feel That You Have to Take off a Day from Work, but You Never See A
Doctor for It. It\'s Not Serious Enough to Go to A Doctor but Serious
Enough to Take off Time from Work. We Would Deny That Claim Because
We\'re Saying You Have Nothing to Show That You Have Measurable Physical
Disability. The Only One Who Can Measure it Is a Physician. You Also
Have the Issue of Fact Of Injury Coming up with Preventative Injuries.
Let\'s Say That You\'re Working With Four or Five Other People In Your
Specific Office, One Has Been Feeling Kind of Sick, Coughing, Not Really
Feeling up To Par the Last Couple Weeks and Then He Disappears and You
Ask Your Supervisor What Happened, And the Supervisor Says Joe Has
Tuberculosis. It\'s a Disease, by the Way, on The Increase in this
Country. You Are Kind of Concerned about That. You Are Worried You Might
Have It. So You Go to Your Doctor, Full Range of Tests, Chest X‑rays, So
Forth. Lab Results Come Back a Week Later. You Are Clear. You Have No
Tuberculosis. Nothing Wrong. You Are Real Happy, However You Have this
Bill for \$500 Sitting There and Workers\' Compensation, If You Submit
That Bill to Us, We Wouldn\'t Pay it Because What We Would Say in That
Case Is That You Have No Measurable Physical Disability. The Doctor Has
Said You Are Clean. You Don\'t Have Tuberculosis. Fit Turned out That
You Did Have It and the Latency Period Was Such as Consistent with Your
Exposure to That Co‑worker, We Would Pay for That Medical Bill And
Subsequent Wage Loss You Might Have. But Because You Are Clean, Nothing
Is Wrong with You, You Don\'t Have Measurable Physical Kiss Bill Tea.
You Have to Have That in Order To Be Covered under Workers\'
Compensation. The Fourth Requirement and Probably the One That Raises
More Questions than Any Others Is Something We Call Performance Of Duty.
It\'s Not Something That\'s Always Clear‑cut as to Say You Are Covered
While You\'re Working, Once You Leave the Premises You Are Not Covered.
There Are Things That Occur on The Job While You\'re Working During Your
Normal Working Hours That Because They Don\'t Arise in And out of the
Course of Your Job Are Not Going to Be Covered By Workers\'
Compensation. Let Me Give You a Couple Examples of That. Let\'s Say You
Happen to Have a Condition of Epilepsy, and under Those Circumstances
You\'re Standing in Your Workplace, You Have an Epileptic Seizure, You
Fall Down, You Hit Your Head on The Floor, Laceration to the Scalp,
Contusion to the Knee Because of a Bruise That You Get From Hitting the
Floor, You Might Even Have Witness Statements Those Injuries Are
Frequently Witnessed, but We Would Deny Coverage under Workers\'
Compensation Because That Is Not Something That Arose Out of the Job.
It\'s Just Something That Was Coincidental with Working Hours. The Cause
of it Was Your Preexisting Condition. There Are No Contributing Factors
by the Job Other than The Fact it Was During Your Working Hours and
That\'s Not Enough to Cover You. It Has to Arise in and out of The Job.
We Frequently Get Questions About Employees from Agencies Such as BLM on
One Issue That Deals with This, and That\'s Emergencies. Generally
You\'re Not Covered Commuting to and from Work. Once You Enter the
Premises of The Agency, Whether That Be the Building Which You Work or
Whether That Be the Range on Which You Work, You Are Covered. But You
Are Not Covered Commuting to and from Work, but We Do Have a Specific
Exception For Emergencies. That\'s Defined as Immediate Danger to Life
And/or Property. So If Your Supervisor Calls You Up at 8:30 at Night and
Says We Have a Forest Fire on the Range, You Have to Come, You Run out
to Your Car, Hop in a Car, Probably Going down the Highway Pretty Fast,
You\'re in an Auto Accident, You Are Going to Be Covered Because You Are
Responding to an Emergency Which Involves Immediate Danger to Life
And/or Property. In Fact You Would Be Covered Not Only for Fighting the
Fire but Also Driving Home after That Emergency Was Finished. By
Contrast Let\'s Say Your Supervisor Calls You up at 8:30 On Saturday,
Hey, You Have to Come in and Cover a Shift, Two Guys Called in Sick. We
Don\'t Have Anybody to Cover. You Have to Come In. You Come In. Clearly
You Are Covered Once You Enter Again the Premises of the Agency, but
Because There\'s No Immediate Danger to Life And/or Property, There May
Be a Requirement by the Agency, but The Immediate Danger Is Not There,
and We Would Deny a Claim That Comes Because You\'re Not in The
Performance of Duty. Let\'s Give You One Other Example And There Are
Multiple Others as Well, but Altercations Is One That Frequently Arises.
If You Have a Fight with a Co‑worker, Are You Covered? Keep in Mind
Federal Employees Are Not Supposed to Fight in the First Place and If
They Do, and Accidents Happen, Are You Covered? The Answer to That Is
Not So Simple as it Sounds. You Are Doing Something You Are Not Supposed
to Do but That Doesn\'t Remove You from Coverage Because We at the
Department of Labor Are Going to Ask What Happened? Workers\'
Compensation Is like No Fault. We\'re Not Even Going to Ask About Who
Caused the Fight. It May Be You Caused the Fight, But If the Cause of
the Fight Arose out of Job Factors Such as Maybe One Employee Told
Another Employee How to Fix a Specific Piece of Machinery Using an Allen
Wrench, the Second Employee Said He Had No Intention of Using the Allen
Wrench and Hits the First Employee in the Head with It, Clearly in That
Case the Fight Arose out of Employment Factors. By Contrast, If You Had
a Fight That Arose over the Fact That One Employee Won a Baseball Pool
And the Second Employee Refused To Pay Off, and That\'s What the Fight
Was and You Had Injuries Resulting from That, You\'re Not Covered under
Workers\' Compensation, Even Though it Happened on the Job, During
Working Hours, and it Have Even Been Witnessed by Co‑workers and
Supervisors, Fights Usually Are, They Usually Attract a Crowd, it Would
Be Not Covered. We Don\'t Cover Those Because They Don\'t Arise in and
out of Employment Factors. There Are Other Examples as Well, Things like
Recreational Activities, Softball Games on The Premises but after Hours,
Things like Intoxication, Will Fuss Misconduct. They Are Issues Where
Performance of Duty Can Be Raised as an Issue, but Keep in Mind That the
Issue from Department of Labor Is Concerned If it Applies from
Employment Activities You Are Covered. There Is a Fifth Requirement.
It\'s Not So Much under Your Control as the Doctor and That\'s Medical
Evidence. You Have to Have a Doctor Say Not Only Is There Medical
Evidence That Shows You\'re Disabled, but it Has to Show That the
Disability Is Job Related. There Has to Be a Relationship Between Your
Injury and Your Subsequent Disability. Usually That\'s Pretty Clear‑cut.
If You Have a Slip, Trip, Fall And You Fall down and Break Your Leg,
There Is a Cause and Effect Relationship Between the Injury And Your
Subsequent Disability. However, It\'s Not Always So Clear‑cut. You May
Have an Incident, for Example, Where You\'re Struck in The Arm by
Something and Four Weeks Later You Suddenly Have Back Pain. Under Those
Situations You Ask The Doctor, What\'s Causing My Back Pain? I Didn\'t
Notice until Four Weeks Ago ‑‑ it Could Have Been the Injury to Your Arm
and You\'re Only Noticing the Back Pain Now Because Your Broken Arm Pain
Was So Severe. That\'s Possible. But Then You Remind the Doctor, You
Know, Doc, If I Had Two Previous Operations to My Back, None of Them
Related to a Job in The Last Two Careers, Maybe It\'s My Old Condition
Flaring up and If it Is, We Would Not Cover Workers\' Compensation in
That Specific Set of Circumstances. We Would Say That Your Disability Is
Not Due to the Incident Four Weeks Ago. It\'s Due to Your Old Condition
Flaring Up. Just Because it Flared up on the Job Doesn\'t Automatically
Mean It\'s Covered. There Has to Be a Medical Report That Shows the
Disability Is Job Related. Well, There They Are, Our Five Basic
Requirements. You Can\'t Meet Four out of Five. You Have to Have All
Five Met. That\'s What a Claims Examiner at The Department of Labor
Looks at When We Determine If a Claim Is Covered or Not. There Is One
Other Area I Want To Cover as Well and That Is the Procedures from the
Department Of Labor\'s Perspective and You Will Hear about the
Perspective From Interior in a Few Minutes But from the Department of
Labor\'s Perspective, What Do We Need from the Employee? Well, Clearly
We Need to Know The Circumstances of the Injury, And the Way in Which
That\'s Done Is Through the Submission of Form Ca‑1. A Ca‑1 Is the
Notice of Injury Form, and That\'s a Basic Form of Injury Which Occurs.
I Am Going to Show You on the Screen Here What the Ca‑1 Looks Like.
It\'s a White Form, Black Writing. You Fill out Boxes 1 Through 15 On
this and in Fact I Am Going To Zoom in a Little Bit on the Specific
Signature Part of It. You Will Notice You Have a Choice in Box 15 of
Electing to Continuation of Pay or Sick or Sick and Annual Leave. If You
Haven\'t Filed Within 30 Days You Are Not Eligible for Continuation of
Pay, but in Most Cases You Are Best off Electing Continuation of Pay.
This Is a Traumatic Injury Form. It\'s Going to Be Required in Any Case
Where the Injury Occurs Within the Space of One Working Day. What He
Call a Traumatic Injury. You Fill out the Front of It. You Give it to
the Supervisor. They Will Give You a Receipt. They Are Then Going to
Fill out The Back of It. On the Back They Will Indicate Such Things as
Whether They Agree with the Circumstances Surrounding the Injury, Pay
Rate Information, Whether They Felt That the Injury Was Something That
Arose out of the Performance of Duty, but That\'s Not Going to Be Your
Job. Your Job Is Just to Fill it out And Give Tight Your Supervisor,
That Form Ca‑1. In 90% of the Cases, That\'s the Form to Be Used. The
Other 10%, Remember, Occupational Diseases and There Is a Separate Form,
a Form Ca‑2. It\'s Very Similar to the Ca‑1. It\'s a Yellow Form Rather
than White but It\'s the Same Way That You Fill out the Front of It,
Your Agency Fills out the Back Of It. They Then Supply the Documentation
That\'s Necessary And Send That onto the Department of Labor. That\'s
the First Area of Information from the Department Of Labor\'s
Perspective Required Of You, Notice of Injury Form, Whether it Be the
Ca‑1 for Traumatic Injury or Ca‑2 for an Occupational Disease. The Other
Area Is in Medical Evidence and the Medical Evidence Will Come to Us in
Several Different Ways. Medical Evidence Might Come to Us in a Form
Letter. It Might Come to Us in a Narrative Report. Either One Is Fine.
We Have Forms That Can Be Used. I Will Introduce You in the next Minute
or So to What Those Forms Are, but We Don\'t Require That Doctor Fill
out Medical Forms. Sometimes Doctors Prefer Narrative, and in Fact in
Some Cases, Complex Causes of Disability and So Forth, We Would Prefer
They Come in Narrative. But We Do Have Forms That You Probably Should Be
Familiar with That the Doctor Is Going to Use. In Fact the First One You
Should Be Familiar with Is Actually Something That\'s of Value to You, a
Ca‑16. It\'s a Medical Authorization Form. If You Sustain a Job‑related
Traumatic Injury and You Tell Your Supervisor That You Need Medical
Treatment, Those Two Things Have to Be There, the Agency, the
Supervisor, Can Authorize Medical Treatment. That Can Be Authorized Even
Before We at the Department of Labor Make a Decision on the Merits of
the Claim. You May Have a Situation Where You Don\'t Have Health
Benefits Coverage and You Have to Go to Emergency Room Right Away. You
Will Know That If You Go to An Emergency Room, Even If There Is an
Emergency, There\'s Still Paper Work That Needs to Be Completed. We Want
to Make Sure That Employees Are Not Denied Medical Treatment or Given
Inadequate Medical Treatment Because They Don\'t Have Separate Health
Insurance Coverage. Under Those Circumstances the Ca‑16 Filled out and
Completed By the Supervisor Is Given to The Doctor and That\'s a
Guarantee of Medical Treatment. Even If We at the Department of Labor
Reject the Claim, Once You File the Claim, You Still Have To File That
Ca‑1, but Once You File the Claim, it Can Be Paid. Keep in Mind It\'s
Only for Traumatic Injuries, Not to Be Used for Occupational Diseases
And If You Have Medical Treatment More than a Week after The Injury, the
Agency Can Refuse to Issue the Ca‑16. But It\'s Something That You
Should Be Aware Of, That If There Is Medical Authorization That Needs to
Be Handled That You Can Request That of Your Agency and They Can
Authorize Medical Treatment. The Second Form and the Form That Probably
You Will See More Of Especially with Lost Time Is A Ca‑17. A Ca‑17 Is a
Duty Status Report Form. On That Form Your Supervisor Indicates What
Your Job Requires, How Much Lifting, Standing, Walking, Bending and So
Forth Is Required. He Gives That to You. You Give That to Your Doctor to
Fill out the Back. The Doctor Will Then Indicate What You Can Do, How
Much You Can Walk per Day, How Much You Can Lift per Day. It Comes Back
to the Agency and They Can Determine, Then, If You Can\'t Do Your Old
Job, What Type Of Other Light‑duty Job You Can Do. You Will Hear More
about Light Duty in a Few Minutes. But the Ca‑17, the Duty Status Report
Form, Is Something You Will Probably Be Carrying from Your Agency to the
Doctor. There Are Other Forms as Well. We\'re up to about 2200 Forms at
The Department of Labor. You Don\'t Need to Know Them. We Approve Most
of Our Traumatic Injury Claims with Two Forms, The Ca‑1 and Some Type of
Medical Evidence. It\'s Not from Our Perspective a Difficult Process but
You Do as Employee Have Certain Responsibilities and Need to Know about
Them. That\'s it from Our Perspective. I Am Going to Turn it over to
Linda Because She Is Going to Talk about Workplace Injuries From BLM\'s
Perspective. Linda?

Sedbrook: Thank You, Ralph. When We Started Looking at This, All of
This, We Knew That it Might Be, Regardless of What Ralph Says, it May Be
Complicated for Employees. The Reason I Say That, it Was Complicated for
Me. So What We Did, We Did a Couple Things. We Created Some Forms Unique
to BLM to Sort of Help Us Through The Process and Hopefully You Will
Never Have to See These Forms, but If You Should, We Developed an
Employee Instruction Sheet, and it Outlines the Instructions to File a
Claim with Your Supervisor, and I Think it Will Be a Helpful Check List
for You To Use. That\'s How I Think of it in My Mind, an Employee Check
List. The Second Form Is Just a Simple Medical Release Form, and You
Sign It, and it Basically Allows Us to Review the Medical Documentation
That\'s Necessary To Make a Decision on All of This ‑‑ Your Injury. The
Third One Is the ‑‑ What We Are Referring to as the BLM Doctor Letter,
and That Letter Is to Your Attending Physician From Your Supervisor, and
it Outlines Our Return to Work Policy That We Have at BLM and That We
Really Are Anxious to Work with Your Doctor If You Cannot Return to Your
Position Of Record That We\'ll Be Able to Return You to a Light‑duty
Assignment, and We\'ll Talk More About That Later. But Those Are the
Three Forms That Are Unique to the Bureau. Carolyn, I Think That about
Sums Up this Portion for Ralph and I.

Burrell: Thank You, Ralph and Linda. Linda, What Happens If Employees
Have Any Questions about Any of The Forms That You Just Talked About?
Who Had Who Should They Talk To?

Sedbrook: Well, Carolyn, Their First Point of Contact, We Always
Recommend Talking to the Supervisor. We Met Yet with a Lot of Your
Supervisors out There. So They\'re Aware of Everything You\'re Being
Told Today. So That\'s Probably Your First Source, Because Probably
You\'re Going to Report an Injury to the Supervisor. Secondly, If You
Don\'t ‑‑ the Supervisor Isn\'t Available or Perhaps You\'re a Little
Confused What Your Supervisor Told You, You Just Want Some Additional
Information Somewhere at Your Facility Will Be Someone Who Is Designated
as an OWCP Coordinator. When We Started Looking into This Process, We
Found That the Bureau ‑‑ We\'ve Complicated it Somewhat Because in Some
Locations That Person Will Be Located in the Human Resources Office. In
Other Locations, That Person Is Located in the Safety Office. So I Would
Urge You to Find out Just Exactly Where That Person Is. So Should You
Ever Need Information, You Will Know Where To Go.

Burrell: Thank You. You Know, There Are a Lot of Forms That the Two of
You Have Talked about That Really Have to Be Completed If an Employee Is
Injured on the Job. Suppose, Ralph, When the Information Gets to the
Department of Labor It\'s Incomplete, in Other Words, the Form Is Not
Completely Filled Out by the Employee or the Employee\'s Supervisor,
What Happens?

Slighter: Well, it Actually Depends on What Stage of the Completion Is
There. If Most of the Information Is There, We\'ll Create a Case File
And Write Back to the Agency and Ask for More Information. Clearly,
That\'s Going to Delay The Decision in the Claim. We Try to Make a
Decision as Quickly as We Can. But in Many Cases When the Information Is
Incomplete, for Example, When We Don\'t Know What The Employee\'s
Regular Work Week Is, We Can\'t Tell If the Injury Occurred on a Regular
Work Week. So We May Write Back to the Agency. In Certain Cases, for
Example, Signature Blocks on Either the Employee or the Supervisor, We
Can Actually Send the Form Back Without Ever Making up a Case File. So
it Depends on the Circumstances There. Clearly We Need to Have the
Information Sent into Us. Sometimes You Don\'t Even Understand Why
We\'re Asking for This Information. We\'ll Be Glad to Tell You at Any
Time During the Conversations That We\'re Having on the Air Here, but We
Do Need the Information That\'s There, and it Will Delay a Decision in
Our Claim If We Don\'t Have It.

Burrell: Okay. Thank You. Also, Ralph, You Talked a Little About
Continuation of Pay Earlier in the Discussion. Isn\'t That a Right That
Every Employee Has If They\'re Injured On the Job?

Slighter: No, I Don\'t Think It\'s Really a Right. I Think It\'s More an
Entitlement. It\'s Something That Occurs under Certain Circumstances.
It\'s Not a 100% Guarantee. You Don\'t Get a Guaranteed 45 Days. It\'s
Not for Every Injury, Remember. It\'s Only for Traumatic Injuries. You
Had to File for it Within 30 Days. There Are Certain Limitations on It
So That under Certain Circumstances, It\'s an Entitlement. But it Is Not
a Right. If You Have a Situation Where, For Example, Your Doctor Says
That You Can\'t Do Your Regular Job but You Can Do Something Else, the
Agency Officers That You That Something Else and the Doctor Says You Can
Do It, You Have to Go Back. You Don\'t Get a Free Ride, a Guaranteed 45
Days.

Burrell: Again to the Viewing Audience, If You Have Any Questions,
Please Call Us or Fax In Your Questions to NTC. Now, Let\'s Introduce
You to a Typical Employee and See How a Workplace Injury Is Handled.
Charlie Is a Materials Handler At a BLM Warehouse. He Spends Only a
Couple of Hours At His Desk Each Day. For the Majority of His Day He
Keeps the Warehouse in Order, He Receives Deliveries and Provides The
Rest of the Office with Supplies. His Job\'s Physical Requirements Are
Strenuous. He Constantly Lifts up to 40 Pounds. He\'s Often Forced to
Bend for an Extended Period of Time and Stretch with a Load in His Arms.
This Is What Happened One Morning.

Ha, Ha, Got You That Time, Pete!

Yeah, Sure Did.

Oh, Ohhhhh! I Think I\'m\... I\'m Going to Have to Sit down. I Might
Have Hurt My Back That Time.

You Sure?

Yeah. Oh ‑‑

Well, See Ya Later.

Lucy, I Wonder If We Can Talk For a Second.

Hi, Charlie, Have a Seat. What\'s the Matter?

I\'m Not Feeling Too Good. I Just Hurt Myself down in the Warehouse.

Oh, Really? What Happened?

Well, I Was Taking a Box down Off That Top Shelf, and I Slipped and
Fell.

I See. Charlie, What Really Happened?

Well, You Know Pete and I Have this Little Rubber Band War, and I Got
Pete Good, and I Turned over a Trash Can, I Can Never Find One of Those
Stepladders, and I Got on the Trash Can, and Then Pete Came by And Kind
of Got Me in the Ribs, And We All Went Tumbling and the Box Came down on
Top of Us, and I\'m Afraid That I Wrenched My Back Pretty Good.

Charlie, We\'re Going to Have To Talk about That Later. But since it
Appears as Though You Were Injured on the Job, We Are Going to Have to
Complete Some Forms for You to Send to The Department of Labor ‑‑ or
Rather for Us to Send to the Department of Labor. However, it Appears as
Though You\'re Hurting. Maybe We Should Get You to the Doctor. What Do
You Think?

Oh, I Could Put off the Doctor for a Couple Minutes If We Could Get the
Forms Done. I Would like to Do it Right.

Okay. If You\'re Sure That You Can Stand the Pain. I Have Here Some
Forms, and Some Of These Forms You Will Have to Complete, Some Your
Doctor Will Have to Complete. So I\'ll Go Through Forms That You Have to
Complete and Then Can You Take the Rest to Your Doctor. Is That Okay
with You?

Sure.

All Right. Great. The First Form Is a Set of Instructions. Basically
What it Will Do Is Walk You Through the Process of Filing for a Claim.
On this Second Sheet it Describes the Bureau\'s New Return to Work
Program. I Encourage You to Read it Carefully and to Explain Tight Your
Doctor.

Okay.

the Second Form Is a Doctor\'s Release. What this Form Will Allow Me to
Do Is to Call Your Doctor to Discuss Your Injury with Him. It Will Also
Allow Me to Coordinate the Return to Work Duties That I Am Going to
Assign You If I Have To, and this Way We Can All Be Comfortable with
What You Will Be Doing. Now, I Want You to Understand, I Will Be Talking
to the Doctor Only If I Absolutely Have To. If I Don\'t, I Won\'t Be
Calling Him.

Okay.

this Third Form Is a Ca‑1. This Form Establishes Your Claim With
Department of Labor. So It\'s Really Important That When You Complete
the First Side Of this Form That You\'re Very Detailed and That You
Include All the Facts. It Will Tell the Story about What Happened When
You Hurt Yourself. Then Return this Form to Me and I Will Complete the
Rest of It. Which Means I Will Get Any Witness Statements, If There Were
Witnesses There, and I\'ll Complete the Reverse Side. Once We Get All
the Information Together, I\'ll Take it to Human Resources. They Will
Process and it Send it To the Department of Labor. The Rest of These
Forms Are for Your Doctor, So I Won\'t Explain Them to You, but I Do
Have to Give You One More Form.

Okay.

this Is a Duty Status Report Which I\'ve Completed on All of The
Employees, However, this Is Yours Specifically. What this Form Does Is
Let Your Doctor Know What the Physical Requirements Are for Your Present
Job. What We Need the Doctor to Do Is To Complete the Reverse Side. He
Needs to Tell Me Whether You Can Return Back to Your Present Position or
If You Can\'t What You Can and Cannot Do. It\'s Very Important That I
Get This Form Back Either When You Return to Work this Afternoon or
Tomorrow Morning. So Be Sure and Bring this Form To Your Doctor\'s
Attention.

Okay. I\'ll Remember to Bring this Back, Then.

Okay, Great. Do You Want to Sit Here and Read Through the Forms and
Complete The Information You Need to Complete?

Sure.

Okay. Great.

Well, Here\'s the Forms, Lucy. That Was Easier than I Thought It Would
Be.

Well, Thanks, Charlie. I\'ll Go Ahead and Look Through Them When I Have
a Minute. Now, Do You Have a Ride to the Doctor?

No, I Don\'t. I Carpooled this Morning. I\'m Not Sure I Could Drive
Anyway. I\'m Start to Go Hurt a Little Bit More Now.

I See. Well, I\'d Be Happy to Take You To the Doctor If You Would like
Me To.

Okay. I Would like That.

Okay. Great. Let Me Finish this One Thing and Then We Can Go to the
Doctor and I Will Be Sure to Take the Form. So Don\'t Worry about Them.

Burrell: So While Charlie Is Off at the Doctor, Linda Is Going to Cover
the Bureau\'s New Back‑to‑work Policy. Linda?

Sedbrook: Thank You, Carolyn. Our Objective for this Segment Is to
Familiarize You with the BLM\'s Procedures for Returning Employees to
Work after They Have Sustained a Traumatic Injury or an Occupational
Disease. To Facilitate the Delivery of This Material You Will Hear Me
Use the Term He and She, His and Her, Interchangeably in Referring to
the Employee. As You Have Learned, When an Employee Sustains a Traumatic
Injury on the Job, She Can Continue to Receive Her Salary For up to 45
Days after the Injury. We Are Aware of the Impact of a Traumatic Injury
on an Employee And the Important People in Their Lives. A Traumatic
Injury Can Be a Devastating Event. It Disrupts the Employee\'s Routine
and the Routine of the People Around Them. Fortunately, Most Injuries
Are Not So Serious That an Employee Must Be off for a Long Period of
Time. In Those Cases Where an Employee Must Miss Work, the BLM\'s Policy
Is to Help the Employee Return To Work as Quickly as Possible. We Have
Developed the Following Return to Work Process. If You Will Remember,
the Employee must Deliver the Medical Documentation to the Supervisor.
The Medical Documentation the Supervisor Will Be Looking for Is the
Ca‑17 or an Appropriate Narrative from the Doctor. This Documentation
must Be Delivered as Soon as Possible Following the Doctor\'s
Appointment. The Supervisor Will Review the Medical Documentation for
the Purpose of Determining Whether The Employee Can Be Returned to Their
Position of Record or Whether Restricted Duty Needs to Be Offered. Some
of You May Have Heard this Referred to as Light Duty. Let Me Give You an
Example. Sara Jane Is a Natural Resource Specialist Who Broke Her Leg on
The Job. Sara Works Primarily Outdoors. Her Duties Include Walking over
Uneven Terrain. Because of Sara\'s Broken Leg, The Physical Requirements
of Her Job Make it Impossible for Her To Perform Her Duties. However,
It\'s Clear from the Medical Documentation That Sara Can Perform Duties
of a More Sedentary Nature. The Supervisor Will Explore Other Work
Opportunities for Sara. Sara Is a Conscientious Employee Who Wants to
Continue Contributing to the BLM Mission In Someway. Sitting at Home Is
Not Her Style! To Determine the Type of Duties That Sara Can Perform,
the Supervisor Will Go Through a Four‑step Process. The First Step Has
Already Been Completed. The Supervisor Has Determined That Sara Cannot
Perform the Duties of Her Position. Now for the Second Step. Can the
Duties of the Present Position Be Temporarily Modified? Remember, Sara
Is a Natural Resource Specialist Who Works Outdoors and Is Required to
Walk Over Uneven Terrain. If There Was Someway That Sara\'s Job Could Be
Modified to Accommodate Her Physical Limitations, the Supervisor Will Do
So. But What If the Supervisor Determines That the Duties Cannot Be
Modified? In this Case the Supervisor Will Look Around the Immediate
Office To Determine If There Are Available Duties That Meet the Physical
Limitations of Sara\'s Condition. If Duties Are Not Found in the
Immediate Office, the OWCP Coordinator Will Get Involved to Help the
Supervisor Find Work in Some Part of the Organization. For Instance, the
OWCP Coordinator Found That the Office of Irm Needed Someone to Do
Receptionist Duties Such as Answering Telephones and Greeting Visitors.
Does this Constitute a Bona Fide Job Offer for Sara? The Answer Is Yes.
The Work That Is Identified May Not Constitute a Position in the
Traditional Sense. By That I Mean There Is No Requirement to Go Through
the Normal Position Classification Process. In Fact, the Duties May Be
at a Lower Grade Level, and in this Case They Are. This in No Way Will
Impact Sara\'s Salary During Her Recovery Period. Remember, this Is Only
a Temporary Arrangement. Our Goal Is for Sara to Completely Recover and
Return to Her Position. An Employee Can Expect That Any Offer Will Be
Committed in Writing. We Have a Simplified Form for This Purpose. The
Form Consists of a List of Duties, a Description of the Physical
Requirements, the Location of the Job, the Date The Assignment Is to
Begin, and A Place for the Employee to Accept or Reject the Offer. What
If an Employee Refuses a Legitimate Offer? Continuation of Pay Will Be
Terminated as of the Date That The Employee Declined. The Department of
Labor Will Be Notified That a Bona Fide Offer Was Made and Rejected by
the Employee. So Basically, Carolyn, That\'s How the Process Will Work.

Burrell: Thank You, Linda. What Would Happen If a Doctor, For Example,
Certified That an Employee Could Return to Work And the Employee
Disagreed with The Doctor\'s Assessment?

Sedbrook: Those ‑‑ That Does Happen Sometimes Where the Doctor Is Saying
the Employee Is Well Enough to Return to Work. What I Think We Have to
Do in Those Cases Is to Consider What The Employee Is Saying, We May
Have to Get a Second Opinion, The Doctor May Have to Get a Second
Opinion and Work Through That. But this Will Not Be a Long, Drawn‑out
Process. You Cannot Stay at Home Longer, For Instance, Just Because You
Don\'t Agree with Your Doctor. We Will Accept Your Doctor\'s Opinion
That You Are Ready to Come Back to Work Unless You Can Very Quickly Get
Us Information To the Contrary. So the Bottom Line Is, We Are Going to
Accept the Word of Your Doctor.

Burrell: Okay. And If There Is Still a Concern On the Employee\'s Part,
He or She Would Need to Return to Work Or Use Sick Leave Oriole Leave?
Is That the Case?

Sedbrook: Well, It\'s Never Quite as Clear as All of That, But We Would
Certainly Expect That That Employee Would Immediately Seek out the
Second Opinion, and We Would Be Anticipating That That Employee Be
Reporting as of the Date That Their Doctor Tells Them That They Can
Report.

Burrell: Okay. Thank You, Linda. Before We Continue, I Would like To
Mention That We Will Be Going To the Phones in a Few Minutes For Our
Question and Answer Segment. So If You Have a Question or Comment for
Our Panel, this Would Be a Good Time to Start Dialing or to Send Us a
Fax. Now, Let\'s See What Happened to Charlie When He Met with His
Supervisor the next Day to Discuss His Job Status.

Charlie, How You Feeling?

Well, I Guess Better, but After You Dropped Me off at the Doctor\'s, I
Ended up Getting in Traction All Afternoon. I\'m Kind of Sore.

I See. Well, What Did You Find out?

Well, Here\'s That Ca‑17 He You Wanted Me to Bring Back. The Doctor Told
Me I Really Couldn\'t Return to the Warehouse. Maybe I Should, You Know,
Go Home and Use Continuation of Pay To Get Better. What Do You Think?

Why Don\'t You Sit Back and Relax and Let Me Review the Form, and Then
We Can Talk about It.

Okay. Well, I See the Doctor Says That You Can\'t Return to Your Regular
Job Because of Your Back Injury, But He Does Say That You Can Work for
Four Hours If You Sit For the Whole Period of Time. So I Think We Can
Accommodate That. Can You Work for Four Hours in The Morning and Then in
the Afternoon You Can Go Home and We Will Put You on Continuation of Pay
for Four Hours So You Won\'t Have to Take Any Sick Leave.

Okay.

We Can Accommodate That. Do You Remember Julie?

Uh‑huh.

Ever since Julie Left, We Have Been Unable to Do ‑‑ Get Her Work Done in
a Timely Manner, and So We Have Quite a Backlog. In Fact, We Have about
2500 Forms That Need to Be Input into The Computer.

Whew, Wow!

If I Remember Correctly, You Attended Computer Training Last Year and
You Were Really Good in The Training. So I Don\'t Think There\'s Going
To Be Any Problem in Assigning You That Work and Your Being Able to Get
it Accomplished. So Why Don\'t We Make That Your Assignment for the next
Several Weeks until You Recover?

Well, I\'m Really Not Looking Forward to Sitting at a Desk for Four
Hours in Front of That Computer Terminal. What Would Happen If I Refuse?

Well, I Hope You Don\'t Because If You Do Refuse I Will Have to
Terminate Your Continuation of Pay.

Hmmm\... Sounds Better Already. I Think I\'ll Accept it Then. But I Will
Sure Look Forward to Going Back into That Warehouse Job. I Sure Will
like That in Comparison.

Wonderful! Why Don\'t I Formalize the Offer And Give it to You Tomorrow
Morning, and You Can Sign off on It and Return it to Me. By the Way, I
Will Need Progress Reports from Your Doctor. So Every Time You Have a
Doctor\'s Appointment, Let Me Know, and I Will Complete a Ca‑17 and Give
it to You and You Can Take Tight Your Doctor.

Okay.

Think of it this Way\... The Sooner You Get Well, the Sooner You Can
Return to Your Job.

Good. I\'ll Do That.

Great. Why Don\'t We Meet in Julie\'s Old Area Tomorrow Mortgage and We
Can Get You Started.

Okay. See You Then.

Burrell: as You Can See, If You Are Injured, Your Supervisor Will Work
with You to Get You Back to Work as Soon as Possible. Linda, Charlie Is
Now on a Restricted Duty Assignment. What Happens If He Is Unable to
Return to His Warehouse Position?

Sedbrook: Sometimes the Doctor Finds That an Employee Cannot Return to
the Permanent Position of Record. In Cases Such as This, the Supervisor
Will Work with the OWCP Coordinator to Reassign the Employee to a
Position Consistent with the Physical Requirements Stipulated by the
Doctor. The Position Which Is Identified For Reassignment May Be at a
Lower Grade. In this Case the Employee Is Entitled to Salary Retention.
You Should Know That the Same Basic Process Will Be Followed To Return
an Employee with an Occupational Disease. The Primary Difference from a
Traumatic Injury Case Is the Employee Who Files an Occupational Disease
Claim Is Not Entitled to Continuation of Pay. I Would like to Emphasize
That Injured Employees Will Be Offered Restricted Duty or Reassignment
If They Are Unable To ‑‑ If They Are Able to Work. Bringing the Employee
Back to Work Is Not Only in the Best Interests of the Employee, but Of
the BLM. You Are a Valuable Resource, and The BLM Needs You. Carolyn?

Burrell: Thank You Very Much. Now, What Happens If Let\'s Say While the
Employee Is on Restricted Duty That the Employee Has Not Been Trained
For the Position That They\'ve Been Asked to ‑‑ or for the Job They Have
Been Asked to Perform In a Restricted Duty Status?

Sedbrook: That Is a Concern To Employees Sometimes When You Offer a
Light‑duty or Restricted‑duty Position and They Feel Uncomfortable That
Perhaps They Haven\'t Been Trained Well Enough to Do the Job Well. I Can
Assure You If You Are Offered Light Duty and You Have Never Done That
Particular Type Of Work That the Supervisor Will Work with You to Ensure
That You Get the Proper Training.

Burrell: Okay. Thank You Very Much. That Concludes Our Formal
Presentations. We Would Now like to Go to the Panel Discussion, and
We\'ll Be Asking a Number of Questions of Our OWCP Expert, Our Human
Resources Expert as Well as Our Safety Expert. If You Have Any Questions
for The Panel or If You Have a Comment, Please Give Us a Call Or Send Us
a Fax at this Time. Now, Linda, I Do Have a Question For You, or for
You, Ralph: If You Are on Temporary Duty Status, Tdy, and You\'re in an
Accident While You\'re on Tdy, Are You Entitled to OWCP?

Slighter: I Think That\'s Probably Going to Be My Question. All of Us
Here at this Course up Here on the Panel Are Not from Phoenix. We\'re
All on Tdy, and Clearly The Question That\'s Being Asked Here Relates
Not Only in General But Also to Us as Well. There Is a Misunderstanding,
I Think, in Many Cases If You Are On Tdy, on Overnight Travel, You Are
Covered 24 Hours a Day. That\'s Not True. However, You Have a Lot
Broader Coverage than You Do, Say, If You Were at Work. As I Said
Earlier, for Example, You Are Not Covered Commuting to And from Work.
That\'s Not True While on Travel Duty. You Are Covered Not Only
Commuting from Your Home to the Airport to Your Tdy Station and Back
Again, but Also, for Example, Let\'s Say That after The Session Is over
Today I Decide to Go to a Local Restaurant for Supper. I Can Do That. If
I Was Injured There, I Would Be Covered While on Tdy Because Tdy
Coverage for Workers\' Compensation Means That You\'re Covered for Those
Activities Which Reasonably Are Incidental To Your Work, Whether That Be
Meals, Whether That Be Travel to And from the Airport, Things Like That.
On the Other Hand, Let\'s Say That after Today\'s Session Is Over I
Decided to Do Some Sightseeing in Sedona Which Is About an Hour and a
Half North Of Is Here. I Would Remove Self from Coverage There. Even
Though I Am on Travel Orders, Even Though I May Be Paid My per Diem for
All of Today, Leaving That Metropolitan Area for Reasons Unrelated to
The Job Removes You from Travel Duty Status During That Period Of Time.
On Tdy You Have Broader Coverage But You Don\'t Have 100% Coverage. It
Has To, Again, Arise in and Out of Your Job.

Burrell: Thank You. We Didn\'t Really Have an Opportunity to Talk Very
Much Today about the Charlie, the Charlie Film, and the Case There. So,
Yogi, I Would like to Ask You If You Could Comment on the Safety Aspects
of Charlie\'s Case.

Nielsen: Sure. I\'ll Talk a Little Bit about the Safety Aspects but I
Also Have a Question for Linda Kind of on That, Too. Safetywise
Obviously Charlie Picked a Couple of Real Poor Activity Choices, Turning
a Bucket Over, Standing on It, but We Want to Remember He Is in the Best
Position to ‑‑ and the Witness to Get Some Statements As to Actually
What Happened So That We Can Get That in the System So We Don\'t Have to
Really Worry. We Can Cure That Process. I Think Probably Something Is
Going to Happen to Charlie Where He Is Going to Get Cured Himself. But
the Fact Is What Happens, Linda, If Charlie, He\'s All of a Sudden Got
the Light Duty Assignment but He Really Still Is Kind of Hurting. Now,
Can He Use His Sick Leave Even Though the Doctor Said You Can Come Back
to Work? Well His Cop Will Stop, as I Understand It. But If He Has
Accumulated Sick Leave, Can He Use That until He Feels 100% or How Does
That Work?

Sedbrook: Well, Certainly Charlie Can Ask for Sick Leave, And If the
Supervisor Approves That or Looks at and it Says Yes, I Think Maybe
There Is a Little Period of Time Where He Needs a Day off or Whatever
That Within That Time Frame, Sure, We Do That. But the Problem Is If His
Doctor Has Said That He Can Work Four Hours a Day, Eight Hours a Day,
Whatever, the Supervisor Will Be Expecting Charlie to Do That. So\...

Nielsen: Good.

Slighter: from the Department Of Labor Standpoint You Are Going to Have
a Couple Other Questions That Are Going to Be Asked as Well. First of
All, Charlie Is Fooling Around on the Job. Is this Something That\'s
Covered Under Workers\' Compensation? In Fact, One of the Issues That\'s
Raised in Workers\' Compensation Claims Has to Do With the Issue of
Willful Misconduct, Deliberate Intent to Injure Self or Someone Else.
Well, the Horseplay That Evolved Here and Clearly You Have a Situation
Where They\'re Fooling Around and Not Engaged in Activities Which They
Should Be Doing, Is Something We Considered. But by and Large, When That
Considers, Take Away the Horseplay, Really the Accident Occurred Because
this Box Fell Down, Charlie, and He Fell down. And Even Though There
Might Have Been Contributing Factors, the Horseplay, Quite Clearly in
this Case We at Workers\' Compensation Would Approve the Claim. That
Seems Somewhat a Discrepancy Because it Might Be That Charlie\'s Subject
to Some Type of Discipline Action for Fooling Around on the Job, and
That\'s True, from a Personnel Standpoint. I Will Turn it over to Linda
in A Few Seconds about That Area. You May Actually Be Subject to
Disciplinary Action for an Injury That We at Workers\' Compensation
Cover. Remember, Two Separate Decisions. Number One, the Decision to
Make Approval or Denial of the Claim. Number Two, Personnel Ear Yeah. We
Are Not Going to Interfere With the BLM Personnel Aspect. On the Other
Hand, They Could Take Disciplinary Action.

Sedbrook: the First Time I Viewed this Tape it Just Struck Me That
Probably One of the Areas That We Probably Didn\'t Explain or the
Supervisor Didn\'t Get Into, but That Would Be Typical If a Supervisor
Is Concerned about Getting an Employee Help Right after an Accident of
this Type. But Certainly Not Only Charlie, But His Co‑worker Were
Misbehaving in the Warehouse, And So out of the Investigation Of the
Accident, We Can Probably Pull Some of These Pieces Together for the
Supervisor. Were These People Properly Trained? Or Had They Always Been
Using Turned Upside down Trash Cans, These Kind of Things? But Certainly
Both Employees Would Have to Be Counseled by Their Supervisor That When
‑‑ This Isn\'t an Appropriate Behavior in the Workplace.

Burrell: Were There Any Other Comments That Any of You Wanted To Make
with Respect to the Charlie Film or the Charlie Case?

Sedbrook: I Think That about Does it for Charlie.

Burrell: Okay. Good. Thank You. If Anyone of the Viewers Has Any
Questions or Comments about Charlie, Please Feel Free to Call Us or Fax
Us. We Do Have Some Faxes Now That I Would like to Share with the Panel
Members. The First One Is from Idaho State Office, and That Is this Is
Extensive Information. Is it Available on the Internet? The Answer to
That Is, Yes, Transcripts of Today\'s Broadcast Of the Entire Broadcast
Will Be Available at NTC on Our Web Page Next Week and Later in the Show
We Will Give You the Information On How to Actually Get to NTC\'s Web
Page on the Internet.

Sedbrook: Could I Add Something to That, Too? There Is an OWCP Guide
Coming Out Also. It\'s Not There Yet, but it Will Be There Very Shortly
to Your Offices, and Employees Are Welcome to Look at That OWCP Guide
Also.

Burrell: Thank You. Also, If Anyone Is Videotaping The Broadcast Today,
You Can Feel Free to Duplicate Those Videotapes and Share Them ‑‑ And/or
to Share Them with Other Employees in the Workplace. We Do Have a
Question in from The Yuma Field Office, and That\'s this Question Is for
Ralph: Why Does it Take So Long To Receive Reimbursement for Costs
Incurred for an On‑the‑job Injury? Also, Why Does it Take So Long To
Receive Correspondence from Claims Examiners at the Department of Labor?

Slighter: Two‑part Question. Why Does it Take So Long for Reimbursement
and Why Does it Take So Long to Process a Claim. Well, the First Part of
That Is The Reimbursement and Clearly There\'s Certain Information
That\'s Necessary in Reimbursement. First, We Have to Approve the Claim.
Right Now as an Example the Average Lag Time Between the Day Of Injury
and the Date That We Receive the Claim for That Injury Is a Month and a
Half. So You Know There\'s Going to Be A Delay Right There. Clearly the
Quicker the Forms Come in the Quicker We Can Make A Decision. Secondly,
a Lot of the Reimbursement ‑‑ I Think It\'s a Bigger Problem for
Reimbursement With Doctors than it Is For, Say, Drug Reimbursements or
Travel Vouchers Because the Travel Vouchers Usually Come in On Standard
Forms and Drug Reimbursements, All You Have to Do Is Submit Original
Receipts. But with Doctors They Need to Submit it on the Standard Form
And the Form Was Devised by the Ama Standard Form. We Call it the 1500.
Doctors Many Times Prefer to Use Their Own Forms and We Won\'t Accept
the Forms. The the Problem Is If the Employee Has Already Paid the
Doctor for It, the Doctor Still Has to Fill out a Form. My Answer to
That Would Be, Speed up the Process for the Paper Work. Make Sure Your
Doctor Knows They Have to Submit the Builds on the Standard Forms. If
Those Requirements Are Met, The Third One Is Approval. We Don\'t Pay Any
Cases, Ca‑16 Excepted, We Don\'t Pay Any Bills Until a Case Is Approved.
A Lot of Cases, Occupational Diseases Being a Good Example, The Average
Time Frame for Us to Make a Decision on a Claim for Stress Is Six
Months. We Won\'t Pay Any Bills in That Until We Make a Decision. So
There\'s a Lot of Different Answers There. There\'s a Second Part to
That Question as Well, and Could You Read That Back to Me, Please?

Burrell: the Second Part of The Question Is: Why Does it Take So Long to
Receive Correspondence from Claims Examiners at the Department of Labor?

Slighter: Why Does it Take So Long to Receive ‑‑ I Think That That Will
Vary from Case to Case. Sometimes it Does. Again, We Don\'t Send
Anything to The Agencies until We Get a Claim. So Unless We ‑‑ the First
Thing You\'ll Get from Us Is a Postcard That Says this Is Your Case File
Number. Use it on Future Correspondence. At That Point, the
Correspondence Process Depends On How Complicated the Questions That Are
Being Asked, the Type Of Information That\'s Being Solicited and So
Forth. We at the Department of Labor Have Been More and More Involved In
Computerization and We Are Not in Many Cases Equipped to Answer
Telephone Responses. We Can Answer Letters, but in Many Situations, We
Have to Go Through Rather Long, Drawn‑out Processes to Give
Correspondence. Sometimes it Is Difficult. I Am Not Sure I Have an Easy
Answer for Saying to Individuals How Do You Quickly Get Correspondence
Sent to Us? My Suggestion Is You Do Things Like Making Sure the Case
File Number Is on Everything You Send In a Prominent Position. You
Don\'t Have to Send Tight a Specific Individual but You Do ‑‑ Send it to
a Specific Individual but You Do Need to Make Sure the the Case File
Number Is There. Other than That I Would Have to Say We\'re Probably
More Willing To Give You a Quick Answer If You\'re Going to Ask One or
Two Questions Rather than 15 or 20 In Any Specific Letter. Clearly One
of Your Contacts Should Be Your OWCP Coordinator. We Provide a Lot of
this Data to Interior on Computer Tape and So Forth. They May Already
Know the Answer To the Question Because We Correspond with the OWCP
Coordinator as Well. Those Would Be the Responses I Would Give.

Burrell: Thank You. Thank You for Your Question. We Have a Caller
Holding on the Line. Hi, Nicholas.

Caller: Hello.

Burrell: How Are You Today?

Caller: Fine, Thank You. I Have a Comment and Then I Have A Question.
The Comment Is I\'m Kind of Wondering Why You Decided to Have this from
11:00 to 1:00 Through Lunch Hour Where It\'s Kind of an Inconvenience.
Kind of Curious. You Don\'t Have to Respond to That Particularly. The
Question Would Be: You Get Injured on the Job and You Go to The
Emergency Room, Kind of like You Get Injured and You Go to The Emergency
Room. But the Whether the Employee Is Conscious or Not, Who Pays for
That Bill. If the Employee Has to Pay for It with His Health Insurance,
Do You Get Reimbursed for That or Is That ‑‑ or Do You Just Not Pay for
and it Let the Government, Quote, Take Care of It? That\'s the Question.

Slighter: I Think I Can Probably Respond to That from The Department of
Labor\'s Perspective and Basically Our Response Would Be That, Remember
We Talked about Medical Authorization Forms. If There Is a Medical
Authorization Issued by the Agency, the Ca‑16, That Bill Will Be Paid
Through Workers\' Compensation. Clearly the Hospital Wants to Be Paid F
No Ca‑16 Is Issued in That Case, You Can ‑‑ If No Ca‑16 Is Issued, That
Might Be Initially Billed to the Insurance Carrier. The Employee Won\'t
Have to Worry Bit. We Get Bills Submitted from the Health Insurance
Carriers Where They Paid the Bill and Want Reimbursement. If We Agree
It\'s Job Related We Will Reimburse Directly and the Employee Never Gets
Involved.

Burrell: in Response to Your Question about the Timing of the Broadcast
Nicholas, We Have Five Time Zones That We Have to Be Available to
Broadcast to During The Day Here, and So That Means That Some People End
up Having To Take an Earlier Lunch and Some People Have to End up Taking
a Much Later Lunch, but We Have Time Zones from Alaska And the West on
Across the Country to the East Coast. But Thank You for Tuning into Us
Today.

Caller: You\'re Welcome. Thank You.

Burrell: You\'re Welcome. Now I\'ll Go to a Fax. This Is from Kitty in
the New Mexico State Office in Santa Fe, And this Is for You, Ralph. She
Is a Labor Relations Specialist. On Your Calendar Sample of an
Employee\'s Compensation Days Off, You Do Have Saturday and Sunday
Included. If this Is Correct, Why Are Those Days Counted?

Slighter: Well, the One ‑‑ One of the Ways That Congress Changed the Law
in 1974 Was to Pay for Continuation of Pay, and The Wording That They
Used in The Law Itself Was Calendar Days. They Said up to 45 Calendar
Days. They Didn\'t Say 45 Work Days. They Didn\'t Say 360 Hours. They
Said 45 Calendar Days. One of the Reasons for this Is Because That\'s
about How Long it Took Back Then for Us to Make a Decision on the
Average Claim, a Month and a Half, 45 Calendar Days, and That\'s One
Reason Why You Count Saturdays and Sundays Because It\'s Consecutive
Disability It\'s Not Going to Be Nine Weeks Which Is Five Days a Week
for Nine Weeks. So Basically it Has to Do with The Interpretation and
How Congress Worded It. They Said Specifically in There 45 Calendar
Days.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much. We Have Another Fax in and I Want to Give
You Some Background First Before I Get to the Question. I Have a Chronic
Injury Which Occurred 25 Years Ago. The Injury Did Occur on the Job. It
Occurred While this Person Was Working for a Different Agency. The
Person Was Not Working for BLM. Reporting Injuries at the Time The
Injury Was Incurred Was Strongly Discouraged. This Person Loses 30 Days
Annually and Suffers Chronic Pain All Day Every Day. This Is a Real
Productivity Loss. After Two Attempts, Even Using Registered Mail, OWCP
Will Not Acknowledge the Receipt of a Complaint, Much less Process the
Complaint. OWCP Is Clearly Stonewalling. I Have Spent or Claimed on My
Insurance Thousands of Dollars. I\'m Not Looking for a Disability
Retirement, but an End to Pain And the Prospect of Regained
Productivity. Do You Have Any Advice for this Individual and Who Can
They Talk With Concerning this?

Slighter: the Advice I Would Have, First of All, There Are Going to Be
Some Problems Here Quite Clearly. Remember We Talked about the Time
Limitation, the Three‑year Time Limitation. Actually If the Injury
Occurred Prior to 1974 You Have Different Time Limitations. Back Then it
Was One, Although In Certain Circumstances You Could Waive it up to
Five. So There Are Clearly Going to Be Some Problems with Whether We
Would Ever Approve it in the First Place, Even Though it Might Have Been
Discouraged as Far as the Filing Was Concerned. We Actually Had
Provisions in Place and Still Do for Agencies That Prohibit the Filing.
Even Though Your Agency Discouraged It, You Filed. What Would Be
Required in These Circumstances Is That You File The Form and Not File
with BLM, You File with the People That You Worked for at the Time of
The Injury, You File the Form With Them. They Cannot Refuse to Accept
It. They May Disagree Witness. In Fact, as I Said, Because of The Time
Frames, We at the Department of Labor May End up Denying the Claim, but
You Need To Contact Your Former Employer, Not Department of Labor
Directly. All We Would Do Is Just Go Back To the Employer and Say Did
this Person Work for You When You Were Injured? Remember, One of the
Requirements Is You must File as Be a Federal Employee and They Are the
Only Ones Can That Verify That. Chances Are They Don\'t Even Have Your
Personnel Records and They May Have to Retrieve Those from BLM or from
the Federal Records Center, Wherever. But They Need to Verify Your
Federal Employment and That\'s Why the Claim Goes Through the Agency.
Again, Keep in Mind, I Don\'t Want to Be Optimistic about this Because
There\'s a Good Chance Because of the Time Frames That Workers\'
Compensation Benefits Would Not Be Payable Here.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much, Ralph. We Are Receiving a Lot of Faxes And
Obviously We Have a Lot of Questions from the Viewers. So What I Would
like to Do, We Are Going to Get as Many Faxes To Answer Today as We
During the Broadcast, and I Want to Assure You That Any That We Do Not
Answer on the Air Today, We Will Be Getting Back to You after the
Broadcast with Answers. So What I Would like to Encourage You to Do Is
If You Want to Ensure That Your Question Gets Answered During Our Live
Broadcast Today, Please Go to a Phone and Telephone Us And We Will Get
You on the Air So That We Can Answer Your Question While We\'re on Live
Today. With That, I\'ll Go to the next Fax. This Is from the Tulsa
District. Shouldn\'t I Contact My Lawyer Before Signing a Blanket
Doctor\'s Release, and What Rights Am I Giving Up?

Sedbrook: Well, If You Have Sensitivities about Releasing Medical
Information, and I Think We Can All Relate to That, this Is ‑‑ I Can\'t
Think of Anything More Personal than That Between You and Your Doctor,
However, You Are Filing it to Receive Benefits from the Government. So I
Think You Have to Put it in The Perspective That We Have to Have That
Information in Order To Make a Determination about Your Case. There Is
Absolutely No Other Way That We Can Make Determinations On Your Case.

Slighter: One Other Point That I\'m Going to Add to That, And Maybe We
Can Go to the Screen Here, We Actually Include A Medical Waiver on the
Notice Of Injury Form as Well. On Form Ca‑1 You Will Notice Right under
the Signature Block It Says I Hereby Authorize Any Physician to Release
Information To the Department of Labor. So We Make That Requirement as
Well. Clearly, from the Workers\' Compensation Perspective, Because the
Agency Is Paying for That Information, We Will Give The Agency Access to
Medical Information in a Workers\' Compensation Claim. The BLM Form,
It\'s Not Ours at The Department of Labor, but Because We Will Give BLM
Access To the Medical Information That Comes In, If You Didn\'t Sign the
BLM Waiver, We Would Give Your Agency Access to the Medical Information
as Well. They Need to Know Not Just for Cost Purposes but for Return to
Duty Purposes. It\'s Clear That Those Individuals Who Have a Need to
Know under the Privacy Act That Information We\'re Going to Give It to
Them.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much. We Do Have a Caller Holding on The Line.
That\'s Norm from Eastern States. How Are You Today, Norm?

Caller: I\'m Fine. Can You Hear Me?

Burrell: Yes. I Can Hear You Fine.

Caller: Here Is My Question. Recently I Was One of the Volunteers at the
Annual Kids\' Fishing Day, and What I Was Wondering Was, What If I Were
Injured in Performing My Duties? I Was like a Volunteer. I Wasn\'t Being
Paid. Suppose I Got Hurt in Doing Something. Would I Get Any Kind of
Compensation? What Rules Would Have to Apply? I Just Want to Know All
That in General.

Burrell: Thanks.

Slighter: I Can Answer That Question. We Do Cover Volunteers. The Most
Difficult Issue of Volunteers Is Not Necessarily Whether They\'re
Covered but What You Pay Them. If Compensation Is Payable, Two‑thirds or
Three Quarters of Nothing Is Still Nothing. But They\'re Eligible with
One Exception for Any Level of Benefits. With Compensation We Would Have
To Find out What Type of Work They Were Doing That Normally Would Be
Done by Another Volunteer and Pay That. Exception Is Continuation of
Pay. Volunteers Are Exempt from Continuation of Pay. You Would Not Get
45 Days. With That Exception We Would Cover Volunteers Just like We
Would Any Other BLM Employee, Wage Loss, Medical Benefits and So Forth.

Nielsen: I Think You Misunderstood a Little ‑‑ Are You Speaking That You
Were Volunteering Not for the Bureau But for Another Agency ‑‑ Ooh ‑‑ I
Think He Was Talking about His Ability to Be Covered.

Sedbrook: Right. He Is a BLM Employee and I\'m Assuming That ‑‑ I\'m Not
Familiar with this Kids\' Fishing Day, but I\'m Assuming That this Is
Something That Goes on in Your Area.

Slighter: Outside the BLM?

Sedbrook: Outside of the BLM. But Maybe Even in Some Cases We Have Thing
That Go on Outside The BLM That We Actually Encourage Employees to
Volunteer For, and We Have a Lot of Those Situations. We Clean up
Streams. We Do All Sorts of Things. In Many Respects, They Are Almost
Officially Sanctioned by The BLM. We Sponsor Some Things. We Advertise
That Sort of Thing. I\'m Assuming this Is One of Those Events.

Slighter: under Those Circumstances, Then We Would Go Into Issues Such
as We Talked About with Recreational Activities. If You Are Performing
Something At the Request of the BLM, We Are Asking Things like Who Asked
You to Go, Are You Given Official Time to Go, Can You Plan for That
During BLM Time And So Forth? If You Are a BLM Employee Engaging
Yourself in Volunteer Activities Outside the BLM You Wouldn\'t
Necessarily Be a Volunteer for the BLM but We Would Determine If this Is
Something Part of Your BLM Duties F it Was, You Would Be Eligible for
the Full Range of Workers Comp Benefits.

Burrell: We Have Eviva on Hold from the Tulsa District.

Caller: this Is Eviva.

Burrell: How Are Things in Tulsa Today?

Caller: Fine. Over the Years I Have Gotten Some Pains in My Hand and
Wrist, And I Have Been to the Doctor, And My Doctor Has Told Me That
It\'s Possible I Have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. My Question Is: it May
Result In Surgery and Is My Time off For Surgery Covered by Workers\'
Compensation?

Burrell: Good Question. Thank You.

Slighter: the Answer to That Is, Possibly. I Can\'t Guarantee That since
I\'m Not a Doctor. The Doctor in That Case Has to Say That the Carpal
Tunnel Syndrome, Repetitive Motion Syndrome, We Get a Lot of Claims For
That Each Year, It\'s or Most Common Occupational Disease Claim, That
It\'s Related to the Job. If the Doctor Says That, We Would Pay for Cost
of Surgery, For Your Absence from Work If You Had to Miss a Month
Because Of Your Recovery from Surgery. If the Doctor Says That the Cause
of the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Is Employment Factors, Typing on the
Keyboard, Repetitive Motion, Whatever, Then That Is, Indeed Compensable.
You Have to File a Claim. It\'s Filed on Form Ca‑2 and Clearly the
Medical Documentation Has to Follow. That\'s Submitted to Your Agency.
We Need to Have Information What Your Regular Job Entails to See That
this Is, Indeed, Something You Engage In, Repetitive Motion, But, Yes,
That Is Compensable, and We Do Approve And Pay for a Lot of Carpal
Tunnel Cases.

Burrell: Does That Answer Your Question, Eviva?

Caller: Yes, it Does.

Burrell: Thanks for Calling Today. Have a Great Day. We Do Have a Fax in
from Rose Perunda in the Yuma Field Office And this Is to You, Ralph.
Who Is Responsible for Paying Bills That Have Not Been Paid by OWCP or
the Employee and the Bills Have Been Forwarded to a Collection Agency?

Slighter: Well, Who Is Responsible for Paying Them? I\'m Assuming That
Workers\' Compensation Hasn\'t Paid Them Because They\'re Not Job
Related. If We Haven\'t Paid Them Because They\'re Not on Standard Forms
Like I Talked Before, Clearly You Need to Resubmit Them on ‑‑ Or Have
the Doctors Resubmit Them on the Standard Billing Form. If They\'re Not
Payable by Workers\' Compensation Because They\'re Not Job Related, We
Denied the Claim or We Denied a Portion of the Claim, You Either Submit
That to Your Health Insurance Carrier ‑‑ They May Not Pay Them, That\'s
Their Choice, We Won\'t Interfere with That. If They Don\'t Pay Them,
There Is Some Employee Responsibility. If They Are Then Forwarded to a
Collection Agency, My Suggestion Would Be to Try to Make Some
Arrangements with Them. Because Workers\' Compensation Has Not Paid Them
I Can\'t Guarantee That That\'s a Denial Of the Claim. It May Be, Again,
They Haven\'t Been Submitted on the Correct Form. Those Would Be My
Options. Make Sure That It\'s Related to a Job Injury. Make Sure
They\'re Submitted on The Correct Form. Submit Them to Your Insurance
Carrier or Make Some Arrangements.

Nielsen: It\'s Been Our Experience in Alaska Sometimes That You Take an
Employee into An Emergency Room. The Emergency Room Isn\'t Necessarily
Managed by the Hospital. It\'s Managed Somewhere Else. Sometimes the
Bills to Get Mixed Up and Before, You Know, the Compensation Specialist
Knows About It, They\'re Getting ‑‑ the Employee Is on a Collection
Agency Through No Fault of Theirs Because We Would Stand Behind That
Bill as Long as We Can Get the Information from the Outfit That Didn\'t
Get Paid. That Happens a Lot When You\'re Out in the Field and Things
Happen. So That Might Be Something She Wants to Take a Look At, Too.

Burrell: Okay. Thank You. We Have a Question in from Rick: Are Injuries
Resulting from Sports Activity While on Tdy Covered? For an Example, a
Group of BLMers Meet to Play Wally Ball In the Evening after a Training
Session. Also Are Injuries from Sports Which Occur on the Job Site
Covered? For Example, If You Are in an Exercise Program in Order to Meet
Fire Requirements or Other Law Enforcement Requirements?

Slighter: Clearly One of the Issues That Comes up When Performance of
Duty Arises Is The Issue of Injuries on Travel Duty, and Remember the
Scenario I Gave Before about Employees Who Eat Meals While on Travel
Duty. That\'s Clearly Covered. Well, with Recreational Activities While
on Travel Duty, I Can\'t Guarantee You That That\'s Something That Is
Covered Like Meals Would Be. But I Can\'t Guarantee It\'s Not, Either.
It Will Depend on the Individual Circumstances. There Are Certain
Individuals Who, for Example, Have Specific Job Requirements That
Require Them to Maintain a Certain Level Of Physical Fitness, Special
Agents Are a Good Example of That and They Would Probably Have Broader
Coverage While on Tdy Because Their Job Says They Should Be Taking up to
10 Hours A Week for Physical Fitness Activities. An Employment Who
Doesn\'t Have That Type of Requirement Playing Wally Ball on Tdy There
Is a Good Chance We Might Deny That Claim. But on the Other Hand, What
If This Was an Unofficially Sanctioned BLM Activity Which Your Strongly
‑‑ Supervisor Encouraged You to Attend and Expected You to Be There.
That Would Probably Bring it Within the Scope of Coverage. You Also Had
a Question about Recreational Activities on the Job. My Response Would
Be the Same With One Exception. We Do Have a Rule That Says If It Occurs
on the Premises During Normal Working Hours, Unless It\'s Prohibited
It\'s Covered. So If You Are Playing Wally Ball During Lunch, for
Example, in The Gym, Which Is for Government Employees, Including BLM,
Clearly You Are Going to Be Covered There. If It\'s after Hours, That\'s
a Different Story. We Will Ask the Same Level of Questions. That Is,
Does the Agency Sponsor It? What Type of Sponsorship Is It? Are You
Expected to Attend or Just Encouraged? Do They Pay for Uniforms,
Supplies, Equipment, Trophies, Things like That? Is it on BLM Premises,
on Government Premises or off? Do You Do Planning During Working Hours?
These Are Questions We Ask about Recreational Activities That Occur to
See If it Should Be Brought Within the Scope of Employment And,
Therefore, Arise Out of the Performance of Duty.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much, Ralph. We Do Have a Caller Holding on And
It\'s John from Ptc. Hi, John.

Caller: Hi, How Are You Today?

Burrell: I\'m Fine.

Caller: Good. Thanks. My Question Was in Regards to Your Tuberculosis
Example. How Would an Employee Be Able to Determine Whether an Exposure
Occurred? Tb Is a Communicable Disease That\'s Highly Contagious and If
OWCP Won\'t Pay for a Negative Result, Would the Employee Have To Wait
for a Full‑blown Case, Which Would Expose More Employees Before They
Could Get Compensation for Those Tests?

Slighter: I Am Going to Turn Part of That Question over to Linda Because
Part of That Is an Employee Assistance Issue from The Workers\'
Compensation Proposal, Keep in Mind That We Only Pay For, as Gave You
the Example Before, Situations Where You Can Show That It\'s Job
Related. My Advice to You Would Be to Go For Testing Right Away. If You
Are Concerned about That, Go for a Test. If it Is Job Related, We Would
Pay for It. However, it May Be under Certain Circumstances it Might Be
Something That\'s Part of the Employee Assistance Plan If You Have a
Situation Where a Co‑worker Has Tuberculosis and Clearly There Is a
Morale Issue There, That Might Be Something Turned over to the Employing
Agency and Paid for by the Employee Health Unit. But from Department of
Labor Perspective, We Can\'t Pay for it Unless There\'s a Measurable
Physical Disability.

Sedbrook: Yes. And in Most Offices We Don\'t Have One Contract All
Across the Country, but in Most of the Employee Assistance Program
Contracts, There Are Provisions To Bring Health‑related Issues Into the
Workplace as Far as Training Employees about What to Anticipate, That
Sort of Thing, And Certainly in My Mind I Can Tell You What My Reaction
Would Be If I Found out That We Had an Active Case of Tuberculosis
Diagnosed in the Workplace. I Would Immediately Contact the Employee
Assistance Program and Find out from Them What Information They Can
Bring into The Workplace to Share with the Employees, Because Obviously
Everybody Would Be Concerned If They Heard That a Co‑worker Had Come
down with Such a Contagious Disease Such as Tuberculosis. So I Think One
of Your Problems Sounded like You\'re Concerned About Ralph\'s
Explaining That If You Just Go to Your Doctor and It Comes up Negative
That You\'re Not Going to Get That Bill Paid For, and I Think That Still
Stands Doesn\'t It, Ralph?

Slighter: from Our Perspective. It May That It\'s Paid for by Your
Health Insurance Carrier, But Not the Department of Labor.

Caller: Thank You Very Much.

Burrell: Thank You. We Have Another Caller on the Line, and That\'s
Maria in Sacramento. Hi, Maria.

Caller: Hi.

Burrell: How Are You Today?

Caller: I\'m Fine. Ready for Lunch.

Burrell: So Are We! What\'s Your Question Today?

Caller: I Didn\'t Hear Any Discussion Having to Do with Whether or Not
an Employee Has The Right to Choose a Doctor in The Case of a
Work‑related Injury, for Example, a Chiropractor or Any Other Medical
Doctor.

Burrell: Okay.

Slighter: I Can Discuss That Very Briefly. Yes, an Employee Does Have a
Choice of Doctors. Could That Include a Chiropractor? Yes, Within
Limitations. More Specifically We Have a Case Where the Chiropractor Has
to Be Specifically for Treatment of a Spinal Condition. Our Limitation
as Written in ‑‑.

Burrell: Excuse Me. Linda, Can You Turn Your Monitor Down, Please,
Because We\'re Getting the Feedback? Maria, Do You Have Your Volume Up?
We\'re Getting ‑‑.

Nielsen: There We Go.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much.

Slighter: When You Have a Chiropractor, He Has to Treat You Only for
Spinal Conditions, Neck, Back, So Forth. Limitations Written by Congress
In 1974 Said It\'s Only for Those Conditions but Within Those
Limitations You Choose Your Own Doctor. The Agency Doesn\'t Choose it
for You under Those Circumstances Where the Physician Is Chosen by The
Agency, the Employee Still Has a Choice. That May Occur in Emergency
Situations. You May Have to Go to a Doctor And You Can\'t Choose Your
Doctor Right Away. They May Choose the Hospital You Go To. You Still
Have the Right to Your Own Physician, and Within Limitations, Again,
Spinal Conditions, Coit Include a Chiropractor.

Caller: Thank You, Ralph.

Burrell: Please Stay with Us. We Only Have about 15 Minutes Left in the
Broadcast. We Have a Fax Question In, and This Is from Charlotte: How
Does Workers\' Compensation Apply To the Emergency Firefighters Rating?
Fire Temporaries.

Slighter: Well, it Does. They Get Compensation Based on Their Specific
Salary. The Salary Is a Little Bit Different Because Emergency
Firefighters Actually Have ‑‑ They May Be on Call. They Work Seven Days
Straight And Then Are off for Two Weeks, Depending on the Emergency.
It\'s Kind of Difficult in That Case to Establish a Pay Rate, But They
Are, Indeed, Entitled To Workers\' Compensation Benefits. They Could Be
Entitled to Clearly Medical Benefits and So Forth. A Lot of the
Emergency Firefighters May Be Covered by Agencies Provide the Medical
Care, Especially in the Beginning, but Those Specific Emergency
Firefighters Are Going To Be Covered Just as If They Were a Regular
Employee.

Nielsen: and I Have a Comment Also, Carolyn, That Depending on Their
A.d. Rating That Would Be Establishing Their Salary, Then, See. Because
Different A.d.\'s Are Paid at Different Rates and the Emergency Provided
Medical Care Is the Way Fire Goes until It\'s Fire and Then it Goes Back
to OWCP.

Burrell: Thank You. This Question Is from Reno. Please Explain the
Relationship Of the Leave Transfer Program to OWCP and Continuation of
Pay.

Slighter: That\'s a Two‑part Question. The Second Part Is Going to Be
Over for the Personnel Area Because the Lead Leave Transfer ‑‑ I Assume
You Are Talking About the Situation by Which If You Have No Leave and
You Want To Have Leave Transferred to You For Job Related Injury How Do
You Pay it Back. I Am Going to Talk a Little Bit About Leave Buy Back
and Turn it Over to Linda. We Do Have a Process by Which If You Use
Leave, Whether it Be Transferred In, Whether it Be Borrowed Beforehand
or Whether It Be Your Own Leave, That That Leave Can Be Recredited to
You. It\'s Called Leave Buy Back Because Leave Is Higher than
Compensation, You Have to Pay Some of That Money Back. If You Got
\$2,000 in Sick Leave And You Were Only Eligible for \$1500 in
Compensation, You Would Have to Pay Back \$500. But, Yes, There Is a
Process by Which Leave Can Be Recredited to Your Account. Now, Some of
That Is Leave Transferred and I Am Going to Turn That over to Linda.

Sedbrook: Yes, I Think Maybe You\'re Talking about Where We Allow People
to Volunteer Their Leave to Help an Injured Employee, and Those Remain
in Effect. What You\'ve Got to Understand Is That a Lot of These
Regulations Sort of Dovetail into Each Other, and They Overlap, and All
Of That Has to Be Straightened Out at the Point When the Employee Needs
All of this Services, and Your OWCP Coordinator, Your Human Resources
Offices and the Department of Labor, Everybody, All of Those Resources
Are Rallied Together to Straighten All of Those Matters about Leave And
the Compensation and All of The Complicating Factors That Go Into
Determining Just What Benefits You Are Entitled To.

Burrell: Okay. Thank You. We Have a Caller on the Line From Washington,
D.C.. Lou?

Caller: Carolyn, Hi, How Are You?

Burrell: I\'m Fine.

Caller: I Feel like the Fourth Caller at Wmzq!

Burrell: We\'re Glad You Called.

Caller: this Is Sort of Difficult Here. The Phone Is Right in Front of
The Speaker, and I Hear My Voice Delayed about a Half a Second After
Everything I\'ve Said. So Forgive Me. My Question Is Most of What We\'ve
Heard Today Deals with Work‑related Injuries. I Would like to Hear More
about Work‑related Diseases or Illnesses, Particularly If the Employee
Believes They Were Caused by on the Job Stress. What Kind of a Procedure
Are We Looking At? Are We Looking at Months and Months and Months and
Months of Having to Submit Copies of Mother\'s Birth Certificates and
Everything? Please Give Me Ideas What\'s Going On.

Burrell: Thank You. Please Hold on in Case You Need Clarification.

Caller: Hold On. We\'re Turning up Our Volume Here. I Can\'t Hear You.
Now I Can Hear You.

Burrell: I Am Saying Please Hold on in Case We Don\'t Answer Your
Question Completely and You Need to Ask Something Else.

Caller: Okay.

Slighter: We Talked a Little About the Concept of Occupational Diseases,
Remember The Ca‑2. Because It\'s a Smaller Percentage of the Injuries We
Get, Clearly We Spent less Time With It. But You Do Have Eligibility for
Compensation for Thing like Occupational Disease. Last Year, for
Example, We Received about 4,000 Claims Nationwide, Not Just from BLM,
But from All Agencies for Stress, and Work‑related Stress Is Clearly
Something We\'re Aware Of. Is it Something That\'s Going to Happen
Overnight as Far as a Decision? No the Average Time Frame for a Stress
Claim Is in the Neighborhood of Six Months. We Won\'t Ask for Your
Mom\'s Birth Certificate or Anyone in Your Family but We Are Going to
Ask for a Lot of Information. Usually the Stress Claim Is Against the
Supervisor. That\'s the Most Common Issue. Yet the Supervisor Has to
Fill Out the Form. In Fact, in Our Process Not Only Do We Ask the
Supervisor and You The Employee for Information, We Then Ask the Other
Party to Comment on the Veracity on What They Believe Are the Strong and
Weak Points of What the Employee Stated. It Is Going to Take Some Time.
There Are Different Benefits Available. You Don\'t Get Continuation of
Pay and Don\'t Get Authorization For Medical Treatment for Occupational
Diseases. I Will Also Point out in Many Cases for Stress Cases We Have
To Show That the Cause of the Stress Is Job Related, and under Those
Circumstances, It\'s Not Always the Case. There May Be Personal Stresses
That Are Going on Which Is Caused the Problem. We Have to Look at Those.
It\'s Mostly from a Medical Standpoint. The Other Thing about Stress
Cases Is That Usually We\'re Going to Require a Second Opinion, and the
Reason We Require a Second Opinion Is Because Usually the Doctor\'s
Opinion That Comes in Only Gives The Employee\'s Side. If We Find Some
Development That Many Times the Employee Has Not Given the Complete
Story, We Will Summarize the Facts in the Case and Give That to a Second
Opinion Doctor. So It\'s Not an Easy Process. I Won\'t Be Optimistic and
Say We Approve Most of Them Because in Many Stress Cases We Do End up
Denying the Claim. But We Do Approve a Lot of Them, Too. Stress Is
Something That Can Occur on the Job. It Can Be Caused by the Job. And
You\'re Eligible for All the Other Benefits Except for Continuation of
Pay, Which Includes Wage Loss Payments, Medical Expenses and So Forth.

Nielsen: I Would like to Comment Just a Little, Too. As an Old Comp
Specialist, I Found That the More Efficiently That You Gatt the
Information Is Give it to OWCP, the Quicker the Claims Are Processed.
Oftentimes They Have to Write You Back and Ask for More Information, and
Sometimes an Employee Might Develop an Attitude Of, Well, I\'ve Already
Answered That. Well, the More Accurately They Can Give You That, You Can
Give Them That Information That They Need and Are Requesting, the
Quicker Things Happen. You Know, That\'s Been My Experience, Anyway.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much. I Have Another Fax ‑‑ Lou, Did We Cover ‑‑
Answer All of Your Questions In.

Caller: Well, Yes. Just One Last Question or Part Of it Here. He
Mentioned a Second Opinion. Are We Talking about an OWCP Physician or a
Contract Physician or Do I Have to Go out And Find Another Physician?
How Does That Work?

Slighter: Very Briefly, We Don\'t Have Physicians Except for People Who
Only Review Written Medical Reports. We Have a Doctor in Each Office Who
Does That. You Won\'t Have to Seek it Yourself. In Fact, it Is, in Fact,
a Contract. We Don\'t Have a Specific Contract. What We Do Is We Would
Take a List of All the Board Certified Specialists in That Area, Go
Through it Alphabetically and Ask the next One on the List
Alphabetically If He Will Take It. If He Does, We Will Set up the
Appointment, Pay for the Medical Evaluation, We Pay ‑‑ the Report That
He Has to Prepare. That\'s All Paid for by Us, but It\'s Not Our Doctor
Because We Don\'t Have Doctors Evaluate You, And You Don\'t Have to Go
out and Get That. We Will Take Care of the Details If We Determine a
Second Opinion Is Necessary.

Caller: Okay.

Burrell: Okay. Thank You. Bye‑bye.

Caller: Thank You. Bye‑bye.

Burrell: We Have Elaine Holding in Phoenix. Hi, Elaine.

Caller: Hi. The Question I Have Is: Ralph Had Explained That Medical
Bills Would Be Paid by OWCP. Now, What about Prescriptions? I Mean, Do
We Send Them to OWCP Or Do We Send Them to like Our Personnel Office,
Who Is Working On Our Case? How Does That Work? Is Reimbursement
Received Quickly or Does it Wait for the Whole Case to Shut down or
Close Or How Does That Work?

Burrell: Good Question.

Slighter: Yes, Prescription Receipts Are, Indeed, Reimbursable. They Are
One of the Easier Ones, With One Limitation That I\'ll Governor You,
They\'re One of the Easier Ones to Process. Clearly We Have to Accept
the Case First. Once We Accept the Case, You Need to Make Sure That on
the Medical Reports the Doctor Notes Someplace in There That He\'s
Prescribing this Medication. That\'s Probably the Biggest Delay We Have.
If You Just Submitted a Drug Reimbursement for a Prescription Drug, for
Example and We Have No Indication That the Doctor Prescribed it for a
Job Related Injury, We Would, Indeed, Hold It until We Got That.
Sometimes They Never Send and it We Can\'t Process That. If the
Physician Indicates He Is Prescribing this Specific Drug For the
Job‑related Condition, Clearly That\'s Reimbursable. You Send in the
Original Receipt And We Can Reimburse You Directly. Once We Get it and
We Have That Medical Report That Says That It\'s Been Prescribed, It\'s
a Fairly Simple Process. We Do this Quite Frequently, And, in Fact, Our
Time Frame ‑‑ We Have Internal Time Frames That Says We Should Be
Issuing That Check Within 28 Days.

Burrell: Thank You. Does That Answer Your Question, Elaine?

Caller: Yes. But I Have Another Question.

Burrell: Go Ahead.

Caller: Basically, Who Decides How Long a Case Should Be? I Mean, Does
OWCP Close the Case Or Does the Doctor Close the Case or Are There
Ongoing Cases For Years?

Slighter: the Answer to All Three Is Yes. Yes, OWCP Closes the Case.
Yes, the Doctor Closes the Case. And Yes, There Are Cases That Go On for
Years. It\'s a Case by Case Determination by and Large. The Doctor May
Say I\'m Releasing This Patient from Treatment. We at the Department of
Labor May Say, this Individual Has No Further Job‑related Disability Or
There Is No Medical Bills or No Treatment Been Submitted Within 90 Days.
We Might Close It. You Can Have Cases That Go on For Years. Our Oldest
Case Right Now Is a Case down in Our Dallas District Office Where the
Employee Was Injured in 1928. So the Cases Do Tend to Go on in Certain
Situations.

Caller: ‑‑.

Sedbrook: for Information Purposes, We Have Approximately 144 Long‑term
Cases in the Bureau. They Are Very Old, Some of Them.

Burrell: Okay, Elaine?

Caller: Thank You.

Burrell: You\'re Welcome. Have a Good Day. I Would like to Again Remind
Our Viewers That If You Have a Question That You Would like to Have
Answered While We\'re on the Air Today to Please Go to a Phone and Call
Us Right Away. I\'ll Move on to Another Fax and This Is from Richard in
Albuquerque: I Injured My Back At Work Several Years Ago and It\'s Well
Documented. A Claim Was Submitted and it Was Accepted. Since That Time
I\'ve Had Two Related Claims, Both Back Injuries and Both Were Accepted.
What If I Injure My Back on a Weekend at Home and I Miss Several Days of
Work, Will My Weekend Expenses Be Covered? What about Continuation of
Pay? Let\'s Assume That My Doctor Said It Was Related to the Original
Injury.

Slighter: Well, Keep in Mind, Just Being Related to the Original Jury
Isn\'t Enough. The Doctor Has to Actually Say That the Cause of the
Disability Is Not What Happened over the Weekend but It\'s a Flare‑up of
Your Preexisting Condition. It\'s Basically a Medical Determination. If
It\'s an Injury Which Occurred At Home, a Question about Continuation of
Pay ‑‑ Clearly, Remember You Have a Couple Limitations. A Maximum of 45
Days for One Injury and a 90‑day Window During Which You Have to Use it
And Chances Are That If It\'s Beyond Either One of Those Limitations,
You Would Not Get Continuation of Pay. But Basically the Issue of
Flare‑ups Which Occur at Home, For Example, It\'s an Issue Which Is in
the Medical Realm. The Doctor Has to Say Not Only That It\'s Related
Tight and it Probably Is, since You\'ve Had Three Different Injuries,
All of Them Accepted as Being Job Related but Naught Just Is it Related
but What Is the Major Cause of Disability? If It\'s Due to this Lifting
Injury at ‑‑ Incident at Home Even Though It\'s Superimposed on These
Job Related Injuries, Then It\'s Not Compensable for Us.

Burrell: I Would like to Let The Downlink Coordinators Know Because We
Want to Answer as Many Questions as Possible Today, We Will Be Going
over Our Satellite Time about by about 15 Minutes. If You Need to Let
Anyone Know For Conference Room Purposes Please Let Them Know Now
Because We Will Continue on for about 15 Minutes Beyond the Originally
Scheduled Time. Because We Do Want to Get to as Many Questions as We Can
Today. I Do Have Another Fax for You. Can a Supervisor Ask You to Take
Annual Leave or Sick Leave and Not Take OWCP So as Not to Have A
Reportable Accident?

Slighter: That\'s Going to Be Probably Something That All Three of Us
Answer in One Way, Shape or Form. Clearly from the Department of Labor
Perspective Remember You Have a Choice on Form Ca‑1 as The Employee to
Elect Sick Leave Or Elect Continuation of Pay. If You Elect Continuation
of Pay Your Supervisor Can\'t Give You Sick Leave. From the Safety
Perspective, and I Am Going to Turn Part of this Question over to Yogi,
It\'s the Type of Situation Where Many Times Supervisors Want to Keep
Down the Safety Record and Try To Stop an Injury from Being Reported to
the Department of Labor. But If You Have Filed on Form Ca‑1 and Said
That You Want Continuation of Pay, Your Supervisor, Your Agency, Can\'t
Require You to Use Sick Oriole Leave If You Are Otherwise Qualified.
That Is, If You Filed Within 30 Days and So Forth. You Have a
Job‑related Injury, And We at the Department of Labor, Workers\'
Compensation Are After the Fact. If That Has Occurred, That Claim Gets
Submitted to Us. If You Are Claiming Lost Time or Medical Expenses. If
There\'s No Lost Time or Medical Expenses, Your Supervisor on the Other
Hand Is Correct in Not Submitting That To the Department of Labor. If
You Are Just Documenting an Injury, We at the Department of Labor Would
Not Accept That Form. It\'s Only When There Is Lost Time or Medical
Expenses. Do You Want to Talk to the Issue, Yogi ‑‑.

Sedbrook: I ‑‑ Could I Add One Thing, Yogi? Remember When We Talked
about That When Employees Are Not Satisfied, Perhaps, with What Their
Supervisor Is Telling Them, and Your Supervisor May Be Telling You
Absolutely the Correct Information, but You Don\'t Feel Comfortable, and
I Know Sometimes I\'m in That Situation Where I Want Somebody Else to
Tell Me the Same Thing, But in Those Cases Where You\'re Feeling
Uncomfortable, It\'s Very Important. Find out Who That OWCP Coordinator
Is for Your Office, And That Person Will Have a Lot Of this Information,
Be Able to Answer Those Questions. Your Safety Office, If It\'s There or
in the Human Resources Office. So Seek out Those People with The
Information.

Nielsen: Safetywise I Think That We Need to Remember When an Accident or
Incident Happens, The Only Way That We\'re Going to Be Able to Make Sure
That That Doesn\'t Happen Is Get That Information and Fix the Process,
And We Talked to the Supervisors About That Yesterday. A Little Bit More
than Just Fixing the Blame on You Because You Had an Accident. We\'ll Be
Trying to Take a Look At What We Were Doing at That Time and Figuring
out How to Do It Right So We Don\'t Have That Accident. We Need to Know
That. Your Safety Professional, the Closest One to You, or a Phone Call
to Me, You Know, in Alaska, We Can Get You Tied in with the Right People
to Give You a Hand On That.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much. We Do Have Someone Holding On. Jennifer at
Eastern States. Jennifer, Hi, How Are You?

Caller: Good. If I Have a Full‑time Job with BLM and a Part‑time Job
Somewhere Else, I\'m Injured Working for BLM, Will OWCP Pay For the Time
I Miss at My Part‑time Job?

Slighter: I\'ll Answer That, And the Answer Is and I Know You\'re Used
to Black and White Answers, but the Answer Is, Well, Probably Not. If
You Have Employment in the Private Sector, it Would Not Be Considered as
Far as Your Base Pay Rate for BLM Unless it Was Work Which Was Basically
Reliant On Your BLM Employment. That Is, Let\'s Say You\'re a Computer
Specialist for BLM and Your Part‑time Job Is Also a Computer Specialist.
The Job That You Have in Private Industry Is Many Times Dependent Upon
the Skill You Have. But Say You Are a Computer Specialist for BLM and a
Salesclerk in the Store Part Time, Then We Would Not Consider Your
Part‑time Employment for BLM. It Can Work the Other Way Around, by the
Way. If You Have an Industry, Private Industry Accident, They Would Not
Pay for Your BLM Salary as Well under the Same Criteria. But Probably
Not. But If the Employment Is Similar In Both of Them, by All Means,
Submit a Claim, Submit the Pay Rate Information, and We Can Consider
That.

Burrell: Okay. Thanks So Much, Jennifer.

Caller: Thank You.

Burrell: We Do Have a Caller Holding. Nancy in Salt Lake, Utah. Hi,
Nancy?

Caller: I\'m Just Fine. I Have a Couple Questions to Ask, Actually,
about Three or Four. One of Them Is, Do Claims Examiners Have Medical
Backgrounds to Make Clear Decisions as to Approval or Disapproval of
Medical Claims?

Slighter: the Easy Answer to That Is They Have Medical Backgrounds.
They\'re Not Doctors. As I Said Before, We Have One Physician ‑‑
Sometimes More, Some Offices Have Two or Three Doctors in Each One of
the Offices and the Claim Examiners Can Frequently Consult Those. I Can
Tell You That from Firsthand Experience. I Started out as a Claims
Examiners and Many Times Asked The Doctors for Opinions. They Are Not
Doctors and Physicians, and They Don\'t Make Medical Determinations.
Remember, the Finding of Disability, You Are Disabled Based on What Your
Doctor Says. We at the Department of Labor Don\'t Make That Finding. We
Make a Determination Because What Your Doctor Said You Are or Are Not
Eligible. But Claims Examiners Have Medical Training but Not Doctors
Themselves.

Caller: Well, That\'s Fine at Your End, but If You\'re Not There That\'s
Proofreading Exactly What the Doctors Put in Their Reports, but You Were
There at the Injury Because You Know What Happened to You, If Something
Was Omitted, Then What Do You Do?

Slighter: You Probably Need To Tell the Doctor about It. Again, Let\'s
Say from a Injury Standpoint You Tell the Doctor That You Were Injured
While Lifting up a Pile of Boxes and The Doctor Said That Because of
That You\'re Disabled for Two Weeks. Well, Then, it Turns out That Under
Those Circumstances the Injury Actually Occurred While You Slipped and
Fell down. Clearly the Doctor Has Erroneous Information and His Medical
Report Is of Very Little Value. You Have to Go Back to the Doctor in
That Case and Tell Him The Correct Information and Then We Will Take it
from There.

Caller: Okay. Another Question Is: You Know Exactly What You Need to Do
at Your End Because You Work in it Every Day, but Being an Employee
Who\'s Been Injured on the Job And Maybe They\'ve Gone to Their
Supervisors Who Don\'t Exactly What it Is to Tell You to Do or What
Forms to Fill out or They Haven\'t Had the Training Maybe Up until
Yesterday, Would You Recommend an Employee Retain an Attorney at the
Onset of an Injury to Represent Their Interests? Do You Respond Quicker
If You Have a Congressional ‑‑ If You\'re Contacted by an Attorney
Rather than You Would Just a Regular Employee Contacted You?

Sedbrook: ‑‑.

Slighter: I\'ll Answer Part of That Question. I Think Part of the Answer
Deals With Contacts Within the Agency. I Think One of the Roles of the
OWCP Coordinators, They Act as Liaison Between You and the Employee and
Us at Workers\' Compensation. Could You Use an Attorney? Sure. Keep in
Mind, You Pay for That Attorney Yourself. Most Cases They Don\'t Need an
Attorney. In Fact, Attorneys Generally Speaking Don\'t Take a Lot of Our
Cases Because Most Our Procedure Is Not Legal. You Don\'t Argue Our
Cases in Court or Anything like That. You Are Perfectly Free to Retain
An Attorney. I Don\'t Want to Make a Recommendation Saying You Should Or
You Shouldn\'t, but in Those Types of Situations, One of My Suggestions
and I Will Turn it Over to Linda in a Second, Many Times You Are Better
off Not Going Necessarily to the Supervisor, but to the OWCP Coordinator
Because They Know Many Times What the Procedure Should Be and What You
Can Do Next.

Sedbrook: You Have Lots of Resources in Your Office. Your OWCP
Coordinator, You Can Go to Your Human Resources Office and Get
Information, You Can Certainly Talk to Your Safety Manager If It\'s an
On‑the‑job Injury Situation. So Those People Working Together And Coming
Together as a Team Will Probably Be Able to Address Most of Your
Questions. We\'re Going to Increase the Training of Those OWCP
Coordinators. So That Service Should Be Bet in The near Future.

Caller: Okay. I Have Two More Short Questions. One Is How Does One Go
about Contacting Their Claim Caseworker with the New Unfriendly Voice
Mail System? There Doesn\'t Seem to Be an Option Button to Allow for
this.

Burrell: What\'s the Other Question, Nancy? Can You Give Us Both
Questions So We Can Respond to Them Quickly?

Caller: Another One Is Has There Ever Been an Employee Customer
Satisfaction Survey to Like Grade What OWCP\'s Grades Like on a Report
Card Have Been?

Burrell: Thank You.

Slighter: the Second One Is Easy, Yes There Have Been Customer Surveys.
The Information Is ‑‑ Has Been Disseminated, It\'s in Our Annual Report,
for Example, and We Have Done That. When You Say Grading, I Don\'t Know
What a C‑plus or D‑minus Would Be, but That\'s Part of It. For the Other
Thing, How Do You Get in Contact with Our District Offices? Each One Our
Offices Clearly Does Have Voice Mail. One of the Options That\'s Always
Available Is You Just Pretend You Don\'t Have a Touchtone Phone. If
You\'ll Hold On, There Will Be Someone Who Will Talk to You.

Burrell: Okay. Thank You So Much, Nancy, for Your Questions and We Will
Have To Move onto the next Caller. Thanks So Much. We Have Don Holding
on from Lake Havasu, Arizona. Hi, Don.

Caller: Hello.

Burrell: How Are You?

Caller: Pretty G My Question Has to Do with the Lost Time or An Injury
Accident That Occurs In the Employee ‑‑ and the Employee ‑‑ Well, for
Example, He\'s Struck by a Car While They\'re on a Job. The Employee
Goes Through the Medical Treatment Necessary. What Are the Employee\'s
Legal Obligations to Seek Medical Reimbursement from That Outside
Entity? It May Not Have Been a Vehicle Type of Accident. May Also Be
Perhaps a Defective Product, Maybe the Employee Picked up Something and
Was Electrocuted and It\'s Proven the Accident Was Caused by this
Outside Entity. Is the Employee Required to Take Someone to Court or Is
That Handled by the Government?

Slighter: What You\'re Talking About Is a Third‑party Claim, And, in
Fact, There Is a Procedure by Which There Can Be Reimbursement. The
Government Doesn\'t Handle it Completely. We Usually Allow the Employees
To Themselves to More Specifically Contact an Attorney And Determine
Liability Issues There. Some of That Money Is Going to Have to Be Paid
Back. You Will Be Getting Dual Benefits Otherwise. You Can\'t Benefits
from a Job Related Injury, Medical Compensation, Lost Wages, So Forth
and Get Total Proceeds From the Suits. You Get a Good Portion. The Way
the Formula Works, the Attorney Gets Paid off the Top, You Get 20% off
the Top and Any Balance Gets Applied Toward Payments Made or Future
Payments. We Encourage to You Sue in That Case Because You Are the One
Who Works with Your Own Attorney. The Government Will Get Involved
Usually in Real Difficult Cases, Class Action Suits. But Usually It\'s
Just with Your Attorney You Need to Notify Your Agency about this
Because They Will Then, in Turn, Notify Us And We\'ll Get Our Attorneys
Involved in Finding out Exactly How Much We Paid and How Much We Will
Require for Reimbursement.

Burrell: Thank You So Much. Don, Does That Answer Your Question?

Caller: I Think So.

Burrell: Thanks So Much. I Would like to Thank All of You For Calling in
Today with Your Questions and Sending in Your Fax Questions. There Are
Some That We Were Not Able to Get To. However, We Will Get to You After
the Broadcast and Talk With You Directly in Order to Provide You with
Those Answers, Or We\'ll Send You Back Something In Writing. Now, with
That I Would like to Ask Each of Our Panel Members to Give Us a Very
Short Summary of The Points They Have Covered Today. We Will Begin with
You, Ralph.

Slighter: it Is a Very Short Summary I Am Going to Give You. Keep in
Mind We at the Department of Labor Are the Ones That the Claims
Eventually Go To. My Encouragement to You the Employees Is That a Lot of
Your Communication Should Be with Your Employing Agency. Your OWCP
Coordinator, Personnel Office, So Forth. We Do Get a Lot of Claims a
Year But That Doesn\'t Mean We Can\'t Give Individual Attention and
Don\'t Give Individual Attention To Then. But Our Encouragement Would Be
Because We Provide a Lot of Information to Interior, Be in Contact with
Those People. If You Need to Call Us, That\'s Probably Something That
Should Come Not Necessarily First but Later on Once You\'re in Contact
With Your Employing Agency. We Try to Maintain the Situation Where
Customer Service Is Important to Us. It\'s Not Always ‑‑ Let Your OWCP
Coordinator Know about That.

Sedbrook: I Would like to Real Quickly Say I Want Everybody to Take Away
from this Broadcast the Fact That the Bureau of Land Management Does
Offer ‑‑ Have a Return to Work Policy, and We Do Offer Restricted Duty
Assignments, and I Just Want You to Go Away Remembering That When You ‑‑
If You Should Become Injured.

Nielsen: as for Safety, I Would Sure like to Have You Think That You Can
Go to the Safety Specialist and Your Safety Managers for Any Assistance
You Need in Any Aspect of the Accident Program.

Burrell: Thank You Very Much. It\'s Been Great Working with All Of You
the past Two Days, Actually the past Four Days, I Guess. We Have Again
with Us Ralph Slighter from the U.s. Department of Labor, Technical
Advisor in the Workers\' Compensation from Washington, D.C., Linda
Sedbrook, Director Of National Human Resources Management Center in
Denver and Yogi Neilsen, Who Is the Safety Manager in the Alaska State
Office. It\'s Been Great Working with You. Hello to the Human Resources
Management Staff in Washington. It\'s Great Working with You, Too. I\'m
Looking Forward to Seeing You next Week. That about Wraps it up for Our
Seminar on OWCP for BLM Employees. I Would like to Remind All BLM
Downlink Coordinators to Have All Viewers Sign the Attendance Roster and
Fax it to the NTC Immediately after Today\'s Show. Please Keep a Copy in
Your Records for Later Use. Also, Please Complete the Program Evaluation
and Give it To the Downlink Coordinators in Your Office. Coordinators
Should Send the Evaluations Back to NTC as Soon As Possible Following
this Broadcast. Both the Roster and Evaluation Forms Were in the Packets
Sent To Your Office Before Today\'s Show. If We Didn\'t Have Time to
Answer Your Question on the Air Today, Again, I Will Our Subject Matter
Experts Will Get Back to You After the Show. You May Also Want to Visit
with Your OWCP Coordinator or Safety Specialists about Specific
Questions. They Will Be Happy to Assist You. I Would like to Again Thank
Everyone Who Participated in Today\'s Show, Especially All of You from
the Field Who Called in Or Faxed Us During Our Interactive Segment. I
Would like to Also Mention an Upcoming NTC Distance Learning Event. On
May 21st Through the 23rd, NTC Will Broadcast a Three‑day Course Which
Will Provide an Introduction to Interpretation. For Information on this
Broadcast, as Well as Other Satellite Courses, Call the National
Training Center at Area Code 602‑906‑5500. To Help Your Office
Participate In Future NTC Broadcasts, See The BLM Satellite Downlink
Guide Or Visit the NTC Home Page on The World Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet
Address Is www.ntc.blm.gov. Transcripts of this Telecast and Other NTC
Broadcasts Are Available on the Home Page. Remember, Doing Your Work
Safely Is the Best Way to Avoid on the Job Injuries and Compensation
Claims. You Have Always Been Important To BLM, and as We Become Smaller
In Size, You Become Even More Important. So, Stay Safe\... And Stay in
the Workplace! Thanks So Much for Watching Us Today.