The New York State Workers Compensation Board has posted their detailed information about a web-based course for understanding medical treatment guidelines.

The guidelines were established as part of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s workers compensation reform from 2007 that entailed the process for getting variances from carriers and employers. The course is held online and features case studies that illustrate the process of getting pre-authorization and variances from carriers.

The Board’s Assistant Medical Director, Dr. Elain Sobol Berger, who is also a senior policy adviser lead the course which helps medical providers who are charged with diagnosing and treating injured workers from job-related incidents affecting the low and mid back, the knees, neck, and shoulders.

The course is said by Berger to have been prepared according to cooperation with the Medical Society of the State of New York and will provide a maximum of one course credit for continuing education through the American Medical Association.

Berger noted in the course introduction that the reforms of 2007 were ‘the most significant change in the New York Workers Compensation system ever.