I knew we were in trouble when I attempted to file my first claim petition using the new computer network, Workers’ Compensation Automation and Integration System (WCAIS). After inputting my client’s Social Security number and clicking the mouse to submit the petition, I was warned that the Social Security field only took nine characters, and that I had entered too many. After carefully re-entering the Social Security number — all nine characters of it — I was met with the same error message. Much to my horror, I quickly figured out that the system had populated the field with two dashes and was counting those as additional characters.
To say that the launch of WCAIS has been trying is a vast understatement. Frustration abounds from the practical to the legal among all who deal with the practice of workers’ compensation. From judges to attorneys to claims adjusters to bureau employees, the brave new world of WCAIS has left no one unaffected. However, it is important to remember that this paradigm shift is inflicting pain on the stakeholders as a group precisely because it is designed to bring them into the inner sanctum for the first time. Once the system becomes completely functional, an assumption not currently shared by some, the workers’ compensation community as a whole will have immediate access to all workers’ compensation matters, including claims, disputes and appeal information. The system will integrate the program areas of the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, the Workers’ Compensation Office of Adjudication and the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board. There are many people whose livelihoods depend on a successful workers’ compensation practice laboring tirelessly in an effort to return the practice to normalcy (and beyond).
