The DWC has not yet issued an announcement, but the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) has noted in the “Recent Actions” section of its web site that it approved the permanent QME regulations on Monday, September 16, 2013. (The approval is listed on page 12 of 18 at http://www.oal.ca.gov/res/docs/pdf/Web_Daily_Reports/Recent_Actions_By_OAL.pdf).

The emergency QME regulations that were reapproved in July were due to expire October 1, but the Institute has confirmed with the Division that the effective date for the new permanent regulations was September 16. The DWC is working to get the new fillable QME forms posted on its website as soon as possible, but in the meantime says it will allow a grace period until October 1 (13 days from today) before use of the new forms will be required, so you may wish to alert appropriate staff.

The Division expects to issue a Newsline to that effect on Thursday. Newslines are posted under “What’s New” at the bottom of the DWC homepage http://www.dir.ca.gov/dwc/ and a link to the QME regulations submitted to OAL for approval by September 16 is included in the CWCI Reg Tracker, which Institute members can view by logging on to our website at https://www.cwci.org/log_in.html and going to the Regulatory section.