09/19/2024 - Important update on hearing notices

The NYS Workers' Compensation Board is implementing an update to our new hearing notices, to restore the inclusion of location.

Earlier this week, in line with our reopening plans, the Board began issuing hearing notices with "Virtual Only" as the place of hearing and removing the assigned location name, as all initial hearings are now virtual. While the change was intended to improve clarity for injured workers, we understand it presented unanticipated challenges for other stakeholders who assign work based on the location on the hearing notice.

Having been made aware of this problem, the Board is working to address it by adding location back into hearing notices. While the place of hearing will continue to show "Virtual Only," we are adding an additional Service Center (SC) notation that will indicate the Board location to which the case is assigned.

We are making this change with urgency, and will notify you before we begin issuing the updated hearing notices.

In the meantime, many organizations' eCase administrators (those that have a POI ID code [R#, W#, or T#]) can use the eCase Scheduled Hearings tab to view and download (PDF, Excel) all scheduled hearings for specified dates by the Board district office or service center. If your eCase administrator is not familiar with this feature, they can review the Scheduled Hearings feature on the Board's website for detailed instructions and the data field layout.

We thank everyone who reached out to the Board with feedback and apologize for any inconvenience as we work to resolve this issue.