SACRAMENTO – The State Senate voted 37-0 Thursday morning to approve SB 557, a bill by North Coast Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) to add doctors of audiology to the list of medical professionals who may be appointed by the administrative director of the state Division of Workers' Compensation as a qualified medical evaluator of medical-legal issues arising in disputed Workers’ Comp cases.

Passage means the bill now heads to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his consideration.

SB 557 had already been approved by the Senate on May 29 but a subsequent vote was required for concurrence on Assembly amendments to the bill. Those amendments require a prospective appointee to be licensed by the state’s Speech Language Pathology and Audiology Board and to pass an examination demonstrating competence in evaluation medical-legal issues.

The California Academy of Audiologists, the sponsor of the Wiggins bill, believes that an audiologist is the most qualified professional to determine whether a hearing loss would impair a worker's ability or whether a hearing loss was secondary to noise exposure on the job.

“Audiologists are uniquely trained as experts in all matters relating to hearing and hearing loss,” Wiggins said. “Including them as experts in Workers' Compensation cases will improve consumer access to professionals with special training in the assessment of hearing loss, as well as a detailed understanding of the effects of damaging influences on the auditory mechanism that may occur in various work settings.”

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