DWC045 - Request to Schedule, Reschedule, or Cancel a Benefit Review Conference (BRC)

What this form is

The DWC045, Request to Schedule, Reschedule, or Cancel a Benefit Review Conference, is how a dispute formally enters the resolution process. A benefit review conference, called a BRC, is an informal meeting run by a DWC benefit review officer where the parties try to resolve a dispute before it goes to a judge. Benefit Review Conferences explains the proceeding itself; Dispute Resolution shows where it sits in the larger process. This page covers the form that gets you there.

The form's checkboxes list the disputes a BRC can address: whether the claim is compensable at all, the extent of the compensable injury (which conditions the work accident caused), temporary income benefits, supplemental income benefits, average weekly wage, maximum medical improvement and impairment rating, and death or burial benefits. The same form also reschedules or cancels a conference already set, and the cancellation use carries a trap covered below.

Before you file: the certification

The DWC does not schedule a conference just because you are in a dispute. The form requires you to certify two things: that you have exchanged the pertinent information about the dispute with the other side, and that you have made efforts to resolve it before asking for the conference. In practice, that means a documented contact with the adjuster about the disputed issue, not just frustration with one. A request without documented resolution efforts can be denied as incomplete. Keep the dates, names, and substance of those contacts; they go on the form.

The deadlines around this form

Once a complete request is filed, the DWC schedules the BRC within 40 days, or within 20 days, roughly three weeks, if the request qualifies as expedited. But the deadline that matters most is the one the form only hints at. The form warns that "there are strict deadlines for requesting a BRC in some disputes" and never lists them. The sharpest one is this: a dispute of an MMI or impairment rating certification must be filed within 90 days of receiving the certification, and the DWC045 is how that dispute is filed. Miss it and the rating becomes final. The 90-Day Rule: When Your Impairment Rating Becomes Final explains that clock in full.

A deadline is a legal cutoff, not a target. Even where no fixed deadline applies, benefits stay wrong while a dispute waits, and old disputes are harder to prove. File when the dispute is clear, not when the frustration peaks.

The exchange rules

Information moves on its own schedule in the BRC process, and the schedule is enforced.

1. Within 10 days of receiving a BRC request, send the other side your pertinent information.
2. All information must reach the DWC no later than 14 days, two weeks, before the conference.
3. Anything you obtain inside those 14 days must still be exchanged as you receive it.

Exchange only what matters to the disputed issues. Holding information back does not save it for later; it risks the conference proceeding without your best evidence, and Preparing for a Benefit Review Conference explains how to assemble what you send.

Rescheduling, cancelling, and not showing up

A request to reschedule made within 10 days of the BRC notice is granted automatically if it is your first. After that, you need agreement or good cause. Cancelling is different, and this is the trap: a request to cancel a BRC may be treated as a withdrawal of the dispute itself. A worker who cancels over a scheduling conflict can lose the dispute, not just the appointment. If the date does not work, reschedule; do not cancel. And attend whatever is scheduled, because missing a BRC without good cause can bring a penalty.

Conferences are held virtually unless good cause is shown for in-person. You do not need a lawyer to request or attend a BRC, and a free ombudsman from the Office of Injured Employee Counsel can assist you, though an ombudsman cannot be your advocate the way a lawyer can. What Happens at and After a Benefit Review Conference covers the conference itself.