The DWC will enforce lien claimants’ use of a Uniform Assigned Name (UAN) beginning June 25, 2016. This is a uniform naming convention which ensures that parties are properly associated to cases in EAMS . The UAN is currently used by attorneys, claims administrators and lien claimants.

Effective June 25, 2016, lien claimants must use their UAN when filing a Notice and Request for Allowance of Lien and Application for Adjudication or their attempt to do so will result in failure. This requirement applies to all filing methods (OCR, EForm, and JET). It is advised that all lien claimants check the UAN Lien Claimants search page to verify their exact UAN name that must be used when filing documents.

Lien claimants who do not have a UAN should email the Central Registration Unit at CRU@dir.ca.gov. Please include an attachment with your business letterhead in the email request . The new assigned name or information will be posted within 10 business days of receipt of the request.

This new mandate is likely to become an additional tool in the claim administrator’s health care fraud prevention process. The true identity of fraudulent medical providers is often hidden behind fictitious business names, medical management companies who file liens in their name, as well as collection companies who do the same. In many instances the true identity of the perpetrator at the top of the pyramid scheme is not clearly visible. Forcing liens to be identified by a single unique number is a step forward since this would at least provide an investigatory thread that can be followed to the culprit’s doorstep.

The Center for Investigative Reporting current investigatory effort exposes fraud in California’s workers’ compensation system. An analysis of more than a million court cases details how workers have been swept into medical billing mills, prescribed unregulated medications and advised to undergo sometimes unneeded or high-risk surgery by doctors who were raking in bribes. The CIR report has now birthed follow up articles in many California leading publications.

The Sacramento Bee in a series of related articles points out that a review of thousands of criminal court records by The Center for Investigative Reporting shows a system in which pay-to-play schemes trump patient care, particularly in unregulated treatments rejected by insurers and “disputed in obscure courts throughout the state.” Prosecutors are pursuing charges against more than 80 medical professionals who have handled more than 100,000 injured-worker cases, most of them originating in Southern California. They allege that the cases account for $1 billion in fraud.

And the Sacramento Bee story suggests that “nobody cares about policing health care for injured workers.” Thousands of unregulated medical providers can spurn legislated checks and balances on medical care in the only-in-California network of 24 workers’ compensation courts. Anyone can demand money – a process known as filing a medical lien – for unregulated medical treatments that include the use of questionable devices, pain creams, shockwave therapies and DNA tests. And in an overburdened system that favors settlements over trials, they often succeed”.

The DWC had this response. “We know there’s a problem,” said Christine Baker, director of the state Department of Industrial Relations, which administers workers’ compensation. Baker’s agency worked with lawmakers on a 2012 law that was meant to limit the filing of medical liens. It established a $150 fee required to demand payment in workers’ compensation courts. It also gave insurers new powers to deny money to providers that aren’t approved to treat injured workers.

Yet claims for unapproved care still are cropping up, Baker said. And the number of liens filed last year is even higher than it was when one of Baker’s advisers initially concluded that the system “rewards bad behavior.” Baker said her department has begun reviewing the medical providers who currently file the largest number of liens. The result: “We do note that many are (criminally) indicted.”

Perhaps the DWC mandate that lien claimants must soon use a UAN is the aftermath of these stunning developments. It would seem at least that the DWC and claim administrators will soon be able to better track the identity of who it is that is asking to get paid.