PERAC Memo #21 - 2009: Disability Retirement Process and the New Treating Physician’s Statement

MEMORANDUM #21, 2009 M E M O R A N D U M TO: All Retirement Boards FROM: Joseph E. Connarton, Executive Director RE: Disability Retirement Process and the New Treating Physician’s Statement DATE: May 7, 2009 PERAC’s Electronic Content Management System (ECM) will streamline PERAC’s disability data collection process by storing images of documents and capturing key data elements from them. PERAC is currently scanning all disability case-related paper documents. Although some internal PERAC processes will change, the process established for retirement boards to submit a Request for Appointment of a Regional Medical Panel has not changed. You are still required to provide a Request for Appointment of a Regional Medical Panel including the Member’s Regional Medical Panel Selection, the Physician List, and the Treating Physician’s Statement as well as any other pertinent documentation. You may access these forms via the enclosed 2009 -PERAC CD: PDF Fill-In Forms: Disability & General Membership. The 2009 CD reflects the most up-to-date versions of these forms – some of them include bar codes on certain pages and other updates. You may also download the documents (but without fill-in functionality) from the forms section of the PERAC Website: http://www.mass.gov/perac/orgforms.htm If you do not have access to a computer, please contact Regina Manning by calling 617-591-8956. She will send you hard copies of the forms for your use.
Please do not staple any disability case-related documents that you submit to PERAC’s Disability Unit and/or Legal Unit. Since certain alterations to documents can impede successful scanning, please do not tear, enlarge, or shrink them, or write on their bar codes. PERAC Memo # 15 introduced the new Treating Physician Statement. You may begin using the new Treating Physician Statement immediately. PERAC will continue to accept either the old or the new Treating Physician Statement until June 1, 2009. Applications that you initiate on June 1, 2009 or after will require the use of the new bar coded forms found in the enclosed 2009 CD. The Commission prohibits the e-mailing of all disability (and general membership) forms to any party unless the documents or files are fully encrypted. If a different party must complete the template, the template should be encrypted prior to storing /saving to a disk regardless of the delivery method. Until the Commission establishes a secured method of electronically exchanging sensitive or personal indentifying information, it will not accept any unencrypted forms via email under any circumstances. Hard copy (printed) documents, containing sensitive or personal identifying information must be mailed or hand delivered. Pursuant to G.L. c. 66A, and Chapter 82 of the Acts of 2007, the utmost care must be used to assure that these templates are not inappropriately used. PERAC has updated the disability manual that was initially distributed to retirement boards in August of 2008. The attached 2009 Update Advisory provides details about the changes that have been made. The changes are largely related to the newly revised Treating Physician’s Statement Pertaining to a Member’s Application for Disability Retirement, and text related to the Risk of Re-Injury. We have provided you with updated three-hole-punched, double- sided printed pages that you should insert after deleting their original counterparts from your manual. The Disability Manual will be posted on PERAC’s Home Page, www.mass.gov.perac. From this point on, the disability manual will be updated on the Web when necessary. Board administrators will be notified of such changes via e-mail and asked to download the amended pages from the website. This approach is being taken because we can reduce expenditures for paper and postage and we can all benefit from being “greener”. If you find that copying updates from the Website doesn’t work for you, we will provide assistance upon request.
Several retirement boards are in the process of establishing paperless systems. PERAC is working closely with them to establish a secure and efficient communications interface and will be publishing Guidelines for the Retirement Boards on Best Practices to Protect Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and Electronic Exchange of Documents containing PII. If your retirement board is considering the development of an ECM system, please coordinate your activities with Paul Laliberte, PERAC IT Director at 617-591-8980. Mr. Laliberte will provide you with specific instructions to ensure a successful interface. If you have any questions about PERAC’s ECM project and disability case processing, please contact Barbara Lagorio, Disability Unit Director, at 617- 591-8952 or Kate Hogan, Medical Services Manager, at 617-591-8949. Enclosures