By now, we’ve grown accustomed to the California Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) utterly failing to manage the state’s Medical Provider Network (MPN) system.

However, even daisyNews was surprised to learn that the DWC can’t even manage its MPN web page. All MPN information has disappeared from the page twice, and remains missing as of this writing.

Insurers and employers establish MPNs to restrict employees seeking care for their injuries to a chosen group of doctors. The DWC’s online MPN list is supposed to be where providers and other stakeholders can determine which MPNs apply to a given insurer or employer.

The list has always been an abysmal failure, featuring thousands of (mostly terminated or otherwise inactive) MPNs with no discernible connection to any particular employer or insurer. The list offers no reliable mechanism for a provider to determine which MPN applies to an injured worker, or for an injured worker to identify providers from whom they can seek care.

California’s MPN system has never worked, thanks to the singular ineptitude of the DWC. Now, the vanishing MPN list simply reflects that reality. The page’s abject dysfunction may explain how its disappearance attracted little notice, but it was the only MPN resource the DWC offered.

It’s the latest symptom of a workers’ comp system in collapse— a system that is increasingly forcing providers to say ‘NO’ to further participation in this chaos. 

CA MPN List Vanishes, Reappears in July 2024

Typically, the DWC updates its MPN web page on the first day of a fiscal quarter. On July 3, 2024, daisyBill attempted to download the updated MPN information. However, something important was missing: all of the MPNs.

The searchable MPN list that normally populates the page was gone, with nothing but white space where MPN details normally reside. Further, the downloadable MPN files in CSV, XML, and other formats were empty.

daisyBill contacted the DWC to inform them of the missing MPN information. The DWC representative thanked daisyBill for the information and “escalated” the problem.

In mid-July, the MPN list returned—but not for long.

CA MPN List Vanishes Again in October 2024

At the beginning of Q4 2024, daisyBill returned to the MPN web page to download the latest (so-called) information. Once again, the MPN details were nowhere to be found. The downloadable files were empty, and the searchable list was gone.

As of today, October 11, 2024, all of the MPN information remains missing.

DWC MPN List: From Unhelpful to Nonexistent

With the passage of Senate Bill 863, the DWC became responsible for maintaining a publicly available online list of MPNs, so both injured workers and providers could determine:

1. Whether an MPN applies to an injured worker, and
2. If so, which MPN applies to the injured worker, and
3. Which providers are members of the applicable MPN

In other words, when an employer or their insurer restricts workers to an MPN, the law demands that the affected doctors and workers have access to this critical information. However, the DWC chose (again) to ignore the directive of the state lawmakers.

Even when the online MPN list is functioning, it fails to provide the essential information.

The list contains over 2,500 MPNs, only about 300 of which are active. Of those, many have names that are impossible to associate with any particular employer. This is mostly because the DWC allows mysterious “entities providing physician network services” to maintain MPNs.

With missing employer listings, it is impossible to determine which MPN applies to any given injured worker. Without this employer MPN information, providers cannot verify whether they are part of the applicable MPN.

All of this ambiguity has serious consequences, including delays in treatment and payment, payment denials citing lack of MPN membership, and administrative chaos.

daisyBill has repeatedly stressed that the failure to list employers on the MPN website undermines the entire purpose of MPNs: to facilitate injured workers’ care. By providing only the MPN names without any information linking MPNs to the employers that utilize them, the DWC leaves providers, injured workers, and even the employers themselves guessing which providers are eligible to treat which employees.

The vanishing MPN list is the latest evidence of the DWC’s apparent indifference to providers’ needs (and rights) and injured workers’ care. By consistently failing to provide critical information and protections, the DWC has forced providers to bow out of this broken system.

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