This bill amends existing workers' compensation law to add occupational therapists and physical therapists to the list of licensed health care professionals treated as "attending providers." It requires the department responsible for industrial insurance to establish minimum standards and a health care provider network, to convene an advisory group from existing advisory committees to advise on implementation and develop best-practice treatment guidelines, and to adopt policies for credentialing, accreditation, oversight, and contracting of network providers. The bill also creates a separate second tier within the network for providers demonstrating occupational health best practices and expands certification and oversight of "centers for occupational health and education." The bill makes multiple procedural changes: injured workers may choose an initial treating provider from a specified list if conveniently located; once a network exists in a geographic area care from nonnetwork providers is limited to an initial office or ER visit and reimbursement may be limited to the department's fee schedule; the department must pay initial prescription drugs for state fund claims related to the initial visit regardless of claim allowance; treatment duration for accepted claims is limited by claim type unless continued treatment is authorized in advance by the supervisor of industrial insurance in a written order; the supervisor or designee may authorize post-exposure immunizations without creating adjudicative binding precedent. The bill defines and prohibits "claim suppression," sets the department's burden of proof for claim suppression at a preponderance of the evidence, requires certain prompt reporting duties by workers and employers, requires the attending provider to inform workers of rights and assist with applications, directs the department to develop electronic methods to track quality measures, and authorizes removal, remedial steps, waiting periods, and permanent decertification for providers who fail standards or exhibit patterns of low-quality care. Legally, the measure modifies existing statutes (amendments to multiple RCW sections) and implements administrative and procedural changes rather than creating a new criminal offense; it defines an administrative violation ("claim suppression") with evidentiary standards and creates new regulatory sanctioning and credentialing procedures for providers. Some important details are missing or unclear in the extracted text: the bill header's effective and expiration dates are not provided here, portions of several sections are incomplete or cut off, two versions use slightly different terminology for advanced nursing licensure, and full cross-references and some implementation details are not included in the provided material.

If enacted, injured workers would have clearer, broader choices for initial care—now explicitly including occupational and physical therapists among the types of providers they can pick when conveniently located—but once the department’s provider network exists in a worker’s area, care outside that network is generally limited to an initial office or ER visit and may be paid only at the department’s standard fee. Health care providers who join the network would face new credentialing, billing, and quality requirements, be expected to follow department and national evidence-based guidelines, and could be removed for patterns of low-quality or harmful care; the department must also create a second-tier certification for providers using occupational health best practices and set up centers for occupational health and education with electronic quality tracking. The department (and self-insurers) would gain new responsibilities to set minimum standards, run the network, convene an advisory group, implement utilization review for self-insured employers, pay initial prescription drugs per its fee schedule regardless of claim allowance, and help reassign patients if a provider is terminated; employers must report accidents promptly and the law defines and prohibits “claim suppression,” increasing compliance risk for employers and providers. Important implementation details are missing from the extracted text—including the specific effective/expiration dates for some sections, the formal identity of “the department” and some advisory-group mechanics—so the timing and some procedural steps remain uncertain.