By Bonnie Prater
WSIA Training Coordinator

January 2009

Hello Members!

Happy New Year!  I hope you all made it through the crazy weather of the last couple weeks without any problems.  What a way to start the year!

Let me catch you up on what has been happening in the training world…We just held our second two-day Certification Review class and the results improved another percent point over the September test (which was an 18.5% increase over June), with 62.5% of our class passing the test.  If you are planning to take the Department’s certification test, I urge you to take our prep class and improve your chance of passing.  The next class will be March 16 – 17, 2009. 

WSIA’s Legal Issues Workshop, held in October, was a great success.  We reached maximum capacity for the class, with 40 attendees.  The evaluations were very positive and strongly indicate this is a training program that our members highly value.

Statutory Requirements, one of IIU’s Workers’ Compensation Professional designation courses, has now ended and the Medical Information course started January 6th.  The final exam is on March 31st.  The third course, Claims Management will begin in April.  Our Claims Management facilitator will be looking for speakers for this course very soon.  If you are skilled in claims management and are interested in presenting at one of these classes please email Bob Duncan at rduncan@psesd.org. 

We held the first two Calculations Webinars, Wage Calculations and Time Loss Calculations, in November.  The archived versions of these Webinars will be available for purchase soon.  Watch the website for more information.

Here’s what is on the training agenda for the near future…First, WSIA is offering a free Webinar on Pay During Appeal.  This Webinar is being held on January 30.  If you are interested in attending, please email Kaye Thede at kaye.thede@wsiassn.org.

The remaining two calculations Webinars, LEP Calculations and PPD Calculations, will be held February 11th and 18th.  These require registration at least one week in advance to allow time for pre-class homework so get your registrations in now! Go to the WSIA Website to register:  http://www.wsiassn.org/public/training_programs.html

The new Webinar training series I told you about in my last column is now a reality.  The first Webinar, Pay During Appeal, is discussed above.  (Please note that WSIA is offering the Pay During Appeal Webinar for free.  We will be charging for the remaining three Webinars.)  The second Webinar will likely be in April and it will be a thorough discussion of a medical condition, likely spinal cord injuries, and a physician will be instructing with me.  The third Webinar will cover Medicare Reporting and will be held sometime in June or July.  The fourth Webinar has not yet been determined but will be held around the same time.  If you have a topic that you would like to see covered, please email me at bonnie.prater@wsiassn.org or call me at 1-800-736-7296.  I welcome your input, as always.

Until February…

Bonnie Prater

WSIA Training Coordinator

bonnie.prater@wsiassn.org

Posted 13 January 2009

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