Why Only One Address?!?!?!

I am starting to get some questions about the new process we are using for insurance carriers and third party administrators in our database.

The essential question is “I have a different address that I want to use for the carrier, which is different from the one in the database; why can’t I change to the address I want to use?”

For several years since the beginning of e-filing, we allowed the parties to input whatever address they wanted to for the carrier against whom or for whom they were filing.

Effective January 14, 2013, in our move to e-service, we required by rule that each carrier designate the addresses they would use for receiving Florida workers' compensation litigation mail. The carriers each selected the address at which they want to receive mail (paper or electronic). This is their choice. Their choice is reflected in the e-JCC program.

I understand that we may feel we know better than they do, and that we could pick an address that would be better for them to receive mail. But, the OJCC is not going to do, or facilitate, that. We are going to send them their mail at the address that they chose.  If I asked you to tell me where you wanted your W-2 mailed, and then decided on my own to mail it to the address I thought was best instead, would you be pleased?

As an aside, we have about 444 carriers in that "carrier" list in e-JCC. There are some duplicates in that list. In the “old” list where we had allowed the attorneys to put in their choice, we had 9,437. The difference is in large part due to duplication. For instance, we have one carrier in the “old” list multiple times at the same address, just input differently:

P.O. Box 31204

P. O. Box 31204

PO BOX 31204

post office box 31204

Post office box 31204

post Office Box 31204

etc.

The practice of allowing anyone and everyone to add a carrier to the database, with the address they preferred, resulted in many duplicates. We know that there are some duplicates in our current e-JCC list. But we no longer have 8,993 duplicates ( 9,437 – 444 =). This carrier/TPA database has to be managed. You can well imagine that managing 444 address and contacts is simpler than managing 9,437! You can also imagine that up until January 2013, that "old" list just kept growing (in some instances it was easier to add something new than to search through the volume of existing addresses in hopes of finding the desired one.

We will be working in coming weeks to remove duplicates and erroneous addresses from the system. I appreciate your patience as we work through this. Our offices have been instructed that if they receive calls from attorneys wanting our staff to change the address for the carrier in our system, not to do so. Because, these are the addresses that the carriers individually selected. 

I have instructed our staff, and ask you also, to communicate any issues or problems this causes to me. I am happy to find solutions to problems that are being encountered because of this new process or our transition to it.