Arkansas law allows the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission (AWCC) to make rules and regulations to administer the Workers’ Compensation laws effectively and efficiently.

Currently, the commission has 41 rules covering topics from the location of the AWCC to Electronic Data Interchange.

The rules range from the judicial to the administrative, from safety to medical, from employer duties to employee rights, and from the Commission’s rule-making procedure to deviation from those rules.

Advisories of the Commission

This is a collection of notices sent to parties involved in workers’ compensation matters.

Advisories pertain to topics not specifically detailed in rules or statutes: Mileage reimbursement, report cards, court reporters or each year’s indemnity benefits.

Advisories are catalogued by year, then numbered chronologically: Advisory 2000-2, for example, is the second notice of the year 2000.

Advisories which have faded in significance are omitted here.

Some advisories have been updated. Outdated references have been altered to reflect current information.

Medical Fee Schedule

The official Medical Fee Schedule of the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission shall be based upon the Health Care Financing Administration’s (HCFA) Medicare Resource Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS), utilizing HCFA’s national relative value units and Arkansas specific conversion factors adopted by the AWCC. Parties using this schedule should also be familiar with Commission Rule 30, the most current CPT, the Health Care Financing Administration Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS), and the ASA Relative Value Guide.

The Fee Schedule is divided into three parts, the Medical Fee Schedule, the National Physician Fee Schedule, and the AWCC Inpatient Hospital Fee Schedule.

HIPAA and Workers’ Compensation Policy

The Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission and the Arkansas Insurance Department have issued a bulletin to clarify the HIPAA Privacy Rule and its applicability to the Workers’ Compensation community. Bulletin 4-2003 was issued August 4, 2003.