Employer E-mails - This is how to register

The OJCC is working to provide greater automation for service of documents. Long-time e-JCC users are familiar with our prior transition to e-service for carriers. Our normal process with electronic filing's evolution is to periodically make changes to the e-JCC platform. Processes are refined, features are added. 

On November 10, 2014 the Florida Rules of Workers' Compensation Procedure were amended. Since 2012, the rules have required carriers and third-party administrators to register with the OJCC, providing a general delivery email address for service of notices and orders. The new rules extend that requirement to employers. 

The change is in Chapter 60, Florida Administrative Code:

60Q6.108 Filing and Service

"(11) All employers, self-insurers, third-party administrators, and carriers shall register a single, general delivery, e-mail address with the OJCC for receipt of all electronically served documents, including petitions for benefits. All employers, self-insurers, third-party administrators, and carriers shall register a single, general delivery, U.S. Mail address and a single telephone number with the OJCC. The e-JCC system will maintain a list of all registered companies and their e-mail addresses. Each such self-insurers, third-part administrators, and carrier shall be responsible for amending that e-mail address as necessary for it to remain current." 

It is hoped that this will lead to yet another decrease in expenses for the workers' compensation community. In the Twenty-First Century it will be a rare business that does not have an email address. As we gain access to ever increasing volumes of such contact information, the volume of U.S. Mail necessary to practicing workers' compensation should decrease.

This will not be an instantaneous change. There will be significant effort required to effectuate the rule. First there will be significant effort required to inform the marketplace of the requirement. There have been a few inquiries already from employers who happened to notice the rule. It is encouraging that some are reading the rules.

There have also been two inquiries from third-party administrators who want to fully understand the process we will engage, and express their intentions of both educating their clients and assisting with getting them registered. That is the kind of cooperation and participation that has been a consistent hallmark of the Florida transition to e-filing over the last ten years. 

As an aside, we rolled-out e-filing in November 2005, and next fall we will celebrate ten years! Sometimes it seems like we have had e-filing forever; at other times, it seems like just yesterday we were travelling around the state introducing users to what was then a radical new idea. I remember so many telling me it would never work. I remember so many posing problems, questions and comments. They are the backbone of e-JCC, because their curiosity, comments, and ideas are the foundation upon which your e-filing system has been constructed and adapted.

A brief pause here to recognize again the DOAH team that made e-filing all that it is. Credit belongs to Susan Brown and her IT team, as well as to former OJCC counsel Walter Havers and his team at the OJCC Clerk's office. Susan's team build, Walter's team suggested, and tested, and tested more. Many others have contributed, but these were the leaders in the beginning. 

There is a registration form on the OJCC website, www.fljcc.org, to facilitate registration of employers and for changes of address for carriers and administrators.  We will henceforth be using that form for all service registrations with the OJCC. The form can be downloaded, completed, printed, and returned to the OJCC by  U.S. Mail, or it may be scanned and emailed (askOJCC@doah.state.fl.us).  

We will not be accepting registration forms from people who do not work for the particular employer. Attorneys, agents, etc. may not file registration forms for any employer. This is the employer's registration, and we need the information to come directly from it. The same holds true for any change of address requests, those need to come from the company, not its attorney or agent. The same form may be used however. 

An important note for carriers and third-party administrators, this is not the registration that facilitates reporting of defense fees each year, that is a separate process, which is accessed through the OJCC website, clicking on the tab "Carriers, Self-Insureds and Third Party Administrators." 

We look forward to the change and to all it will mean for the marketplace of Florida workers' compensation. email me with questions, comments, suggestions, criticisms, all thoughts are welcome: david.langham@doah.state.fl.us.