Workers' compensation: data reporting requirement: administrative penalties.

Existing law establishes a workers' compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers' Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of his or her employment. Existing law requires the administrative director to develop a cost-efficient workers' compensation information system and requires the administrative director to adopt regulations specifying the data elements to be collected by electronic data interchange. Existing law establishes the Workers' Compensation Administration Revolving Fund in the State Treasury. Money in the fund may be expended by the Department of Industrial Relations, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the administration of the workers' compensation program, except as provided, and for the Return-to-Work Program. This bill would require the administrative director to assess an administrative penalty against a claims administrator for a violation of data reporting requirements. This bill would require the administrative director to promulgate a schedule of penalties providing for an assessment of no more than $5,000 against a claims administrator in any single year, calculated by violation type and excluding threshold rates of violations, as prescribed. This bill would provide that any penalty is to be deposited in the Workers' Compensation Administration Revolving Fund. Existing law provides that a person who, or public or private entity that, is not a party to a claim for workers' compensation benefits may not obtain individually identifiable information, as defined, that is obtained or maintained by the division on that claim, except as specified. This bill would require the administrative director to publish an annual report disclosing the compliance rates of claims administrators and would authorize the administrative director to publish the identity of claims administrators for this purpose.