PDRater – PD calculators

Do you need protection from the Workers' Compensation Rate Hearing?

Workers’ Comp Executive will be providing a live steaming broadcast of the Workers’ Compensation rate hearings taking place in Sacramento on June 8th, 2009.

Now, don’t mind that funny looking guy yammering on about CompLine. [1][2] He’ll be replaced with a live streaming broadcast of the rate hearings come Monday afternoon at 12:45pm.[3]

Will the rates go up?  Will they go down?  Who knows!

1. I must accept cookie you say?  Twist my rubber arm!  It’s like Friday in Judge Succa’s hearing room! [↩]
2. CompLine is an “experience mod” tool for insurance professionals. [↩]
3. Photo courtesy of jspace3 [↩]

Riddle me this!

Yesterday afternoon in Fresno I showed another attorney how I could perform an Ogilvie calculation on my cell phone using the best workers’ compensation calculator website in the world.

• He looked at me and asked me, “How much does this cost?”
• I answered, “They’re free.”
• He asked me, “Well, why the heck am I paying for _______?”[1]

I don’t know.[2]

1. Oh, YOU know who he was talking about… [↩]
2. Photo courtesy of Santheo [↩]

This phone will not run PDRater calculators, but yours might!

I recently discovered that installing the Opera Mini web browser on my “smartphone” has allowed me to run this website’s workers’ compensation calculators from my phone.[1]

Since launching this website I’ve given a lot of thought to support for cell phones.  There just are not many phones that can run these calculators.[2] The glaring and notable exception is the iPhone.

Amusingly, one of this website’s users has asked for an “iPhone app” version of this site.  Seriously, you’ve got one of the few phones that can use this site and that’s not good enough for you?  (Thanks Chris!)

This is huge.  It means:

• I can blog from the Board[3]
• More importantly, no more bulky money charts or rating manuals at the Board!

1. Photo courtesy of storm gal [↩]
2. It would be more correct to say there are not many phones that support javascript and AJAX well enough to interact with this website in a meaningful fashion. [↩]
3. Probably a lot more interesting for me than it is for you… [↩]

Work Comp Rock Star!

A few months ago I had a client recognize my name from this website.  I believe her words were, “Hey!  You’re Mr. PDRater!”

Yesterday another workers’ compensation attorney recognized my name from this website.

That’s right, I’m now a work comp rock star!  Woo hoo![1]

FYI, this morning I’m the Sacramento WCAB.  Stop me and say hello!

1. Photo courtesy of Joe Pemberton [↩]

PDRater: No Bills!

To this day, most of the e-mails I receive are from people asking me some variation of “No, really, how much does it cost to use these calculators? When am I going to be charged? What’s the catch?”

I intend to keep all the calculators free for anyone who cares to use them. I have built this website because I really do enjoy the hell out of blogging about tech stuff and workers’ comp law, dissecting complex workers’ compensation math formulas, and building something useful to myself and other professionals. This is quite literally how I spend my free time. I’m just that nerdy.