By Bonnie Prater
WSIA Training Coordinator

May 2009

Hello Members!

I have now been on the job for over a year and a half!  Time certainly flies when you are having fun!  I want to thank Dave Kaplan and Kaye Thede for all their support, help and encouragement.  I also want to thank the Industrial Insurance University’s Board of Regents for their support and efforts to improve our training programs.

I have included a list of all the training program facilitators and speakers in this Program to publicly acknowledge and thank them for volunteering their time and energy to our training programs.

Finally, I want to thank you, our members, for your support and appreciation and for sharing your thoughts and ideas.  I look forward to many more rewarding experiences working with you.

During our 2008-09 program year, July 1 – June 30, we experienced some training program firsts.  Our Certification Review course was expanded to two days in September 2008, allowing the instructors and myself much more time to cover important material, lead the class in more calculations exercises, and provide test preparation advice to the attendees. The pass rate for the testers that attend our class before taking the Department’s Claims Administrator test continues to surpass the pass rate for testers in general.  This class is limited to our members and taking it will give you an edge! 

Another first was the addition of a wage calculations webinar to our web-based calculations training programs.  We all know our compensation calculations are all based on starting with the proper gross monthly wage.  The addition of this webinar was well received.

We also expanded our webinar training programs by adding targeted webinars on more advanced topics such as Pay During Appeal.  We still have two more of these targeted webinars coming up between now and mid-July.  Watch our website and emails for registration information.

Lastly, we have launched a new survey tool, Survey Monkey, which will allow us to very easily reach out to you for input when needed.  Two surveys have now been sent out to our membership.  Part of my mission is to gather information from our members and then design training to meet your needs.  This tool analyzes your responses and will allow me to do just that!   We will also be testing this tool for our course evaluations.  Watch for future surveys evaluations and complete them fully and timely to make sure your voice is heard.

I am very excited about some additional programs I am working on for 2009-10 and beyond.  Take a look at my article on this in this Program to learn more about what the upcoming year has in store.  I encourage you to email me with any feedback or suggestions regarding training.  I also encourage you to get involved in the Association, by becoming an instructor/speaker or a facilitator.  We rely on volunteers to make our programs successful.  Working together, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.  Let me hear from you!

Until June . . .

Bonnie Prater

WSIA Training Coordinator

bonnie.prater@wsiassn.org

Posted 6 May 2009

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