Employees

The employee must have a record in the ATS System before a claim or an employer’s report of injury can be entered for the individual. The Employee program is available after selecting the Explore menu and clicking the Employee tab on the Worker’s Compensation menu.

Note that if your company has another software package that tracks employee information, a custom interface may be provided to import relevant data into the ATS System in order to save time and ensure that the data is accurate.

Entering a New Record

Users with appropriate access rights may enter employee records. You can use the New Employee item on a menu or the Open button on the Employee List to open the Employee data input page.

The standard screen used to track employee information is shown below with a sample record. Since the ATS System allows screens to be tailored to meet your organization’s requirements, your screen may look slightly different.

Note the fields related to the direct deposit feature will be hidden unless the user has the authority to use this feature.

Figure 2‑1: Employee Data Input Page

The individual fields on the form are described as follows. Note that as soon as you enter the SSN, the program will search for an existing record with that SSN and display “Processing” at the top of the screen. If one is found, that record will be displayed.

Field Name	Description
SSN	This is a required field. New employees will automatically be assigned a number such as UNK00000028. When you type over this number, the program will insert dashes if necessary, check to see if a record with that SSN already exists and, if so, display it on the screen. If you are not sure of the SSN, we recommend that you use the “UNK” number and edit the record when you have the information. Any existing claims will be updated when the record is saved. Note that during a data conversion, a “UNK” number is assigned when the SSN is missing or invalid. This feature makes it easy to find the records that need to be updated.
Last Name	The employee’s first and last names are required. This should be the name the person is known as. There are other fields for their legal name.
First Name	If a person changes his or her name, use the AKA feature to keep track of the previous name(s) so the claim and employee records can be looked up by either one. For details, refer to the AKA section. Note that is feature is in development so it may not be available in your current version.
Middle	A middle initial if any.
Address	Enter the address and the zip code. The program will automatically fill in the correct city, county, and state if the zip code is in the United States.
Phone	Phone numbers entered as 10 digits such as 4101234567 will be displayed as 1+ (410) 123-4567 where the “1+” is the international dialing code for the United States.
Birth Date	The employee’s date of birth. Enter the date in an MMDDYYYY format. The program will insert the slashes.
Sex	The employee’s gender.
Marital Status	The employee’s marital status may be selected from the drop-down list or entered using the appropriate code where M=married, S=single, D=divorced, and W=widowed.
Hire Date	The date of employment.
Term Date	The employee’s termination date if any.
Last Transaction	The ATS system will track changes made to fields in the employee record if a system administer has set them up as transactional. The program will display the last date one of the transactional fields was changed for informational purposes.
Wage	The employee’s wage during the specified pay period.
Pay Period	The employee’s pay cycle may be selected from the drop-down list or entered using the appropriate code where H=hourly, D=daily, W=weekly, B=bi- weekly, M=monthly, and A=annual. Note: When a claim or First Report of Injury is entered for the employee, the program will calculate the average weekly wage and write it into the record so it can be used to determine the employee’s benefit rate.
Exemptions	The number of exemptions is an optional field used to calculate any taxes withheld when making benefit payments in the A&S Disability product. (The same employee screen is used for both.)
Dependents	The ATS System will update this field and display the total number of dependents for the employee as records are added and/or removed. The number may not be edited. (See the Dependents section.) Note: The Dependents module may be used when 1. The employee's wages have been garnished and a lien needs to be set up (e.g. child support). 2. The number of dependents affects the Workers' Comp benefit rate. 3. There is an additional claimant for a Medicare beneficiary who is deceased.
# Claims	The program will increment this value as claims are entered for the employee. This field may not be edited.
CMS Beneficiary	A check in this box indicates that the employee is a Medicare beneficiary. Normally, the check is entered by the program that processes the CMS Query Response file.
HICN	The Medicare health insurance claim number will be filled in with the data in the CMS Query Response file.
Last Name (SSA) First Name (SSA) Middle Initial	The employee’s name as known by the Social Security Administration if it’s different than the one used in the rest of the Worker’s Compensation system. If the employee is a Medicare beneficiary, this name will be sent when submitting a report to the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).
Division Dept Sub	The levels that indicate where the employee works within the company’s hierarchy are called Division, Dept, and Sub by default. These labels have probably been changed on your screen. Levels may be entered in the following ways depending on how your system has been set up: 1. Pressing the Ellipsis button in any level field will display a list of all the available entries. This is the default. 2. If the Level 1 and 2 fields are blank, you may be able to enter a Level 3 to have the program automatically fill in the associated levels.
Occupation	The employee’s occupation. Press the Ellipsis button for a list of choices.
Employment Type	The employee’s status such as full-time and part-time. Press the Ellipsis button for a list of choices.
Employee #	The number assigned to the employee by the company. It may be entered in the Employee Selection dialog to look up a record. This ID number may be used to ‘identify’ the employee in certain cases where the SSN may not be displayed for privacy reasons.
Supervisor	The name of the employee’s supervisor.
Notes	A short note pertaining to the employee. For example, “Employee hired for project number J3466”.
Direct Deposit	Direct deposit is an optional, add-on module. A check in this box indicates that the employee wants his/her benefit payments deposited directly in the bank. Depending on the user’s security settings, these fields may not be visible.
Routing Number	The bank’s routing number.
Bank Account	The employee’s bank account number.

Saving a New Record

The program will display a message indicating that the record has been saved successfully. At that time, the employee’s name and SSN or ID will be displayed in the window’s title bar. If you have skipped over any of the required fields, the “Required fields missing” message will appear. Enter the data. When you are done, save the record again.

Editing an Existing Record

The Employee menu provides a number of options to find the record you want to view and/or modify. The first option, the Selected Employees search, lists a variety of criteria you can use to quickly find the record. The standard list is shown below. The criteria on your system may be different.

Figure 2‑2: Employee Search Criteria

There are other ways to look up records. The options are as follows:

Menu	Function
Claimants	Lists all claimants with claims where the Adjuster is the current user. Current Employees Lists all employees that are currently working for the organization.
Current Employees	Lists all employees that currently work for the organization.
Inactive Employees	Lists all employees that have left the organization (i.e. a Termination Date exists).
All Employees	Lists all employees whether or not they are currently working for the organization.

Figure 2‑3: Employee Search Result List

Note that if the Region by Level feature has been implemented and Region View has been set, you will only be able to see a list of the employees in your specific region.

However you find the employee, make the desired changes. When you are done, save the record and exit the program.

If a system administrator has set the Query Employee Changes flag using the Module Parameters screen, the program will check the employee’s name, address, phone, supervisor, birth, and/or termination date. If any information has changed, you will be asked if the individual’s claims and reports of injury should be updated.

When an employee’s social security number is changed, all the appropriate tables will be updated automatically.

Adding an Employer’s Report of Injury or a Claim

Some employees sustain a number of injuries while they work for a company. If you need to enter a report for a person that already has an existing employee record, we recommend that you edit the record to make sure that the information is current. When you are finished, you may use the New Employer’s Report button to continue.

The same suggestion applies when you need to enter a claim. When you are finished verifying that the employee’s data is up to date, you may use the special New Claim button to continue.

Adding an AKA Name

People are often known by more than one name. The name in the employee’s record and their open claim(s) should be the same as it is the one that will appear on all payments issued to the employee.

Any other name the employee uses should be entered as an alias using the AKA feature. For example, a woman often takes her husband’s name when she gets married. In that case, you should enter her new name in the Last Name field and her maiden name as the alias. After that you will be able to find the employee and the associated claim records using either name.

The Employee data entry page contains an AKA button. Clicking the button opens the Also Known As list. The list shows all of the AKA entries for the employee.

Figure 2‑4: Employee Also Known As List

Click the new button to open the AKA data input dialog. Enter the alias and save the record. Now you can search by both current and alias names.

Figure 2‑5: Employee Also Known As Dialog

Entering a New Dependent

There are a number of reasons for creating dependent records. Some of them are:

1. The employee was a Medicare beneficiary and is now deceased. Dependent records must be entered for any “Additional Claimants” that need to be submitted to the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).

2. The individual wants to attach a lien to the employee’s payments or be considered when calculating the benefit amount for a claim.

3. The individual is the employee’s beneficiary and entering the person as a dependent will simplify the payment process for a fatality claim.

To enter a new record or modify an existing one, click the Dependents button to display the Dependents List.

Figure 2‑6: Employee Dependent List

Click on the new button. The following screen will appear. Enter all pertinent data and then click Save. The dependent record is now available to use.

Figure 2‑7: Employee Dependent Data Input

The fields on this screen are described as follows:

Field Name	Description
SSN	A valid SSN should be entered for the individual.
Last Name First Name M.I	The complete name if the dependent is an individual. If the dependent is an estate, enter “The Estate of <employee>”, “the Family of <employee>” or “The Trust of <employee” depending on the entry in the Relationship field. In any case, leave the other name fields empty.
Address	The individual’s address, city, state, and zip code
Phone	The individual’s phone number.
Birth Date	The individual’s birth date is important if the state of jurisdiction for the employee’s claim has an age limit for tacking deductions for dependents (when calculating the benefit rate).
Gender	The individual’s gender if relevant.
Relationship	The dependent’s relationship to the employee. The valid options are: F = Family Member, Individual Name Provided O = Other, Individual Name Provided X = Estate, Entity Name Provided (e.g. "The Estate of John Doe") Y = Family, Entity Name Provided (e.g. "The Family of John Doe") Z = Other, Entity Name Provided (e.g. "The Trust of John Doe")
Student	A check indicates that this individual is a student.
100% Dependent	A check indicates that the dependent is to continue being on a claim’s eligible list regardless of age.
Additional CMS Claimant	This number from C1 to C4 must exist in the record in order for the dependent’s data to be submitted to the CMS.
Type of Rep	The type of representative for the dependent. Valid choices are: · Guardian/ Conservator · Attorney · Power of Attorney · Other
Name Address...	The rest of the fields for the representative are self-explanatory.

Saving a new record (or deleting an existing one) will update the # of Dependents for the associated employee.