Department of Labor Office of Workers' Compensation Programs OWCP No. Injured Worker's Name ( First, middle, last ). Physical Demand Definitions for the OWCP OWCP has adopted the following Strength Level definitions to indicate the absence or presence and frequency of the physical. Rome GA Dept of Labor. Department of Labor OWCP Forms. Web Bill Processing Portal Provider Claimant Agency U.S. Department of Labor Send medical reports, bills and case correspondence to our Central Mail address: U.S. Department of Labor DFEC Central Mailroom - District 12 PO Box.
Its that time of year, if you need to make a change to your health benefit enrollment, or just want to explore your options, remember that you need to do this over the web since OWCP no longer mails out brochures. A good place to start is here: Note that if your employing agency transferred your health insurance enrollment responsibility to OWCP, you must make sure your completed SF2809 is received by the OWCP District Office handling your case. If you are not sure, send it to both your agency and OWCP.
Be sure to go to the OPM website to get started. If you have gotten mail from OWCP since late August, you may have noticed that OWCP claims personnel names no longer appear on most documents. Instead, on the page that should have a signature line, you will see what is called a QR code at the bottom left, it sort of resembles a square bar code.
That code contains various information including the name of the author in the format of their first name and last initial, ie 'Jeff Z'. OWCP explained in FECA Bulletin No 18-07 that 'employees have expressed security and safety concerns regarding use of names in.
Communications' as the reasoning for making this change. This policy is being implemented in slightly different ways by each district office, so depending on the office you are assigned to, you may see some variations.
In order to know the name of the person who sent you correspondence from OWCP, you will need to download a free 'QR reader' app. Go to the app store where you download apps for your device and search for a 'QR Code Reader' which you should be able to download for free and then use the camera on your device to read the QR Code. If you are interested in more information on QR codes here is a link to the wiki: Following is the full text of FECA Bulletin No.
18-07: FECA BULLETIN NO. 18-07 Issue Date: August 17, 2018 Subject: Protecting the Identity of Employees in Written and Oral Correspondence Background: Division of Federal Employees' Compensation (DFEC) employees routinely respond to a myriad of written and telephonic inquiries, and issue written correspondence when developing and adjudicating a claim, and when terminating, reducing or suspending medical and/or compensation entitlement. Employees have expressed security and safety concerns regarding use of names in these communications. DFEC recognizes the importance of the safety and welfare of its employees in its mandate to fulfill the requirements of the FECA, 5 U.S.C. As a result, DFEC has changed its longstanding procedure of placing employee names on written correspondence, including all formal decisions. A similar change will also apply to oral communication.
Notice regarding this change was published in the Federal Register on April 18, 2018. See Federal Register / Vol. 75, page 17196. Purpose: To provide guidance on the format by which DFEC employees should identify themselves on written and oral communication/correspondence. Applicability: All National Office and District Office personnel. Action: Balancing the safety of our employees and the communication needs of our stakeholders, DFEC will use the below methods in identifying the authors of its written and telephonic communications:.
All signatures and names currently appearing on outgoing correspondence will be replaced with 'Division of Federal Employees' Compensation,' and the author of the document will be captured in the case management system. To preserve the Employees' Compensation Appeals Board's (ECAB) ability to identify the adjudicator of certain decisions such as reconsideration decisions, DFEC will use a Quick Response (QR) Code to identify decision authors. A naming convention for the staff will be used to provide every employee with a pseudonym for use in telephonic and other oral communications.
The naming convention to create the pseudonym will be the employee's first name and last name initial. If more than one individual within an office has the same combination (e.g. Two Thomas J.' S) then their middle initials will be added.
Outgoing correspondence (including decisions) will not contain or otherwise reveal the pseudonym when printed. Instead the pseudonym will be embedded into a QR Code on the letter, allowing a QR scanner device to reveal the pseudonym. Disposition: This Bulletin is to be retained until incorporated unto the DFEC Procedure Manual. ANTONIO RIOS Director for Federal Employees' Compensation Distribution: All DFEC staff. This is a topic I have previously posted, but its important and bears repeating. If you are receiving a check from OWCP and are also entitled to Social Security Disability payments from SSA, you may be able to recover legal fees and other unreimbursed expenses through your Social Security disability claim. If SSA is reducing your check, they are taking an 'offset' because you are receiving a check from OWCP, you can recover your unreimbursed expenses from SSA.
This also applies to other expenses related to your workers compensation, for instance paying for medical a report. SSA has a document available online explaining how to report expenses such as attorney fees paid in connection with receiving benefits from OWCP. The attorney fees (and other qualifying expenses) will be used to reduce the offset amount. Please click on the link below to SSA POMS - DI 52150.050 - Excludable Expenses, and carefully follow SSA's instructions: If this link does not work, do a google search for the document number 'POMS '. Recently, a client was complaining that nothing had happened with her request for reimbursement for traveling to an OWCP directed medical exam. After spending more time on this than seemed reasonable, I was able to determine that the problem was that she uploaded the reimbursement through the ECOMP interface.
The problem is that reimbursement and bills must be mailed to the DFEC Mailbox address: This is a reminder that when dealing with OWCP, one must always remember that everything this program does is designed for the convenience of OWCP and employing agencies. While employing agencies are given unfettered access to your file, and extensive ability to upload and characterize all sorts of documents through ECOMP, a claimant must send in a written request for access to their file, and, if you're lucky, an updated copy will be sent out after 30 days, and typically, that copy was made shortly after it was requested, and then held until the end of the thirty days.
I frequently hear from injured workers that they have difficulty requesting copies of their records, either being told they are not allowed to have a copy or being charged exorbitant fees. The following article lays out some very good tips and instructions on how to request a copy of your records, and how to do so in ways that minimize the cost. Keep in mind that for many medical providers, sending out copies of your records has been turned into another profit center. By understanding your rights, you can avoid improper charges and obstacles to getting a copy of your medical records. In order for a medical provider to bill OWCP for medical care, the provider needs to register through OWCP's contractor to get a provider number. I have found that sometimes the process of registering for a provider number or straightening out problems with a provider number can become an obstacle to a physician's office being able to accept and treat federal workers compensation claimants. If your physician's office is having problems registering for their provider number or renewing their provider number, please ask whomever at the physician's office is having a problem with this process to call me directly.
Here is a link to useful information on this program to share with your physician's office. Beginning in 2003, OWCP migrated from maintaining federal employees' workers compensation claims as paper files to an imaged system. When there is no activity for an extended period, paper files are shipped off to the federal record center. The federal record center destroys files after 15 years.
If you had a pre 2003 paper file that is now considered a 'retired' file, meaning it has been shipped off to the federal record center, you are at risk of your paper file being destroyed. This recently arose for a new client of mine who sustained an ACL injury in the early 1990s, underwent surgical repair, recuperated, and returned to work. Now he is being told he needs to consider a knee replacement procedure, but OWCP reports that they cannot retrieve his file. It was shipped off to the federal record center in 2003, and the federal record center routinely destroyed the file in 2016.
If you have an old injury and OWCP sent the file to the federal record center, if you do not have a completed copy of your file, you should make OWCP send you a copy before its too late. I am frequently surprised that claimants are unaware that they can fax documents to their OWCP office. The contact information for each district office, including the official fax number, is found on the web at this link: If you have a new injury, it is critical that your claims examiner receive all of the records being generated by your doctors. Be sure to mark your claim number on each pieces of paper and fax, mail, or upload that to your file. Do not rely on other people. If you want your claim to get approved, YOU should gather all records and send them to OWCP. Mailing to the PO Box in London Kentucky can be very slow, you should either upload documents using ECOMP or fax things.
Anything that you mail or fax MUST have your OWCP claim number clearly marked on the top right. During the time that your claim is pending approval, you need to be on top of this.
Once the claim is approved, the doctors will send in the paperwork when they send in bills. But prior to the approval, you need to make sure that everything is getting in the file by taking care of it yourself. If the claims examiner ends up with two copies, so what, if they do not get something critical, your claim could get denied. The Federal Employee Compensation program has been slowly dealing with the opioid crisis and has published guidance on changes to the program regarding opioids.
If OWCP denied your hearing loss claim based upon a report by ENT William Bauer MD, please give me a call as the denial may have nothing to do with whether or not you actually have noise related hearing loss, it would appear that this physician specializes in writing reports that are calculated to get your claim denied. Just as a broken clock will be correct twice a day, it might be that you don't have noise related hearing loss, but in my client's circumstances this doctor's opinion had nothing to do with the merits of the case and appeared to only relate solely to a desire to get OWCP to send more business by writing unfavorable reports. If your hearing loss claim was denied based upon a report by William Bauer MD don't give up!
There are offsets between your federal workers comp benefits paid by OWCP and benefits you receive from SSA. When you are receiving monetary benefits from OWCP and you receive disability benefits from SSA, you must notify SSA, as there may be a reduction of your SSD benefit and if you don't stay on top of this you will ultimately have a significant overpayment that you are required to repay. Similarly, an OWCP recipient who is in the FERS retirement system and begins receiving SSA retirement benefits must notify OWCP immediately of this as there is an offset that runs the other way; OWCP gets a credit for the portion of your SSA retirement annuity that arises from your federal employment.
Just because you tell OWCP that you have started receiving the SSA retirement does not mean you are ok, you need to follow up and make sure your claims examiner has requested the necessary information from SSA. If OWCP fails to follow up, you will still have an overpayment and likely be required to repay it.
Here is a link to a story about a USPS employee who received an overpayment from SSA due to failing to notify SSA of receipt of OWCP benefits. In a recent 'news' item, OWCP announced a new initiative to assist federal employees with FECA claims arising from the September 11th Terrorist Attacks. Information about this can be found on the OWCP website at: However, the biggest issue with these cases, which is NOT addressed in the announcement and guidance offered by OWCP, is the severe and unreasonable approach taken by OWCP in approaching timeliness. The biggest obstacle to 9/11 claims at this point in time is making sure that a claim is explained in a manner that does not allow OWCP to deny the claim on the basis that allows OWCP to unreasonably determine that the claimant should have known they had an injury and missed their time limitation for filing the claim within three years of when they knew or should have known of their injury. If you are contemplating filing a claim for a medical condition arising from 9/11, or your presence at Ground Zero, or work related to that event, please realize that you must either explain that you have still been exposed to work factors contributing to your condition within three years of the date of filing your claim, or you must have a medical condition that was 'latent' meaning it did not arise until more recently (such as cancer) and you must file your claim within three years of when you knew or should have known that your condition arose from that exposure.
You can also show that you gave your supervisor written notice of your injury at the time the injury occurred. This can be particularly complex in a claim for PTSD or other mental health condition arising from exposure. There are many cases in which OWCP essentially says, you should have known you have PTSD if you were there and if you file your claim more than three years after that exposure they will deny your claim on timeliness. There are sometimes ways to work around this issue, but it is critical that if you are filing a claim now, for a condition that you relate to exposure that occurred more than three years ago, you stand a very good chance of getting a denial unless your claim can be explained in a way that allows you to meet the three year time limitation.
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