What five experienced occupational medicine physicians actually do — and why the decisions made in the first fifteen minutes matter more than anything that follows.
Members — $39143 pages · 12 chapters · PDF, yours to keep · Non-members $79
They came from urgent care, emergency medicine, or primary care. They are competent clinicians who one day found themselves holding a work status form, a question about causation, and an employer on the phone.
The clinical medicine is usually the easy part. What's hard is that this job has three more parties in it than the job you trained for — an employer, a carrier, and a regulatory framework — each with its own standard of proof and its own idea of a good outcome.
Nobody writes this down. It gets learned slowly, by getting it wrong in front of an employer. This guide is five physicians who have spent their careers in that position saying plainly how they handle it.
"A provider who performs on the Big 4 will be regarded as a rock star by employers, and clients will never have a reason to leave. It's remarkable that these issues are actually quite simple."
John Koehler, MD · Chapter One
Twelve chapters across six parts, organized by clinical domain rather than by session order.
Unnecessary lost time. Unnecessary OSHA recordables. Work restrictions that hold up. The first comp phone call. Why one employer priced recordables at $22 million.
Ramazzini to Bradford Hill. The grand bargain, AOE versus COE, and why the causal question is addressed to you.
NIOSH six steps, the nine viewpoints with their real weights, risk measures, two worked cases, and the six things every written opinion needs.
What each standard obligates you to produce, what it obligates the employer to hand you, and the wording you are not allowed to change.
Which of the thirteen subsections are actually binding. The two seizure pathways nobody separates properly. When you can certify a driver who still needs a waiver, and when you cannot.
Pearls and pitfalls from roughly half a million cases. When a corneal abrasion needs ophthalmology today rather than Monday. Which shoulder gets an MRI on the first visit. What's actually emergent in the lumbar spine. Referral thresholds throughout.
Risk, capacity, tolerance. Where the number in "no lifting over ten pounds" actually comes from, and how to justify it.
What to do when progress stalls, and how to raise an inconsistency without accusing anyone.
Marijuana and safety-sensitive positions. CBD contamination. APP scope of practice. Where the contributors disagree, and why.
Plus: a self-assessment bank by chapter with answers, five quick reference cards, and a verification appendix listing every figure worth checking against its primary source.
The material you'll actually need in ninety seconds, on single pages built to be printed and posted:
| Physicians, NPs and PAs | Seeing occupational medicine patients — whether or not their training prepared them for it. |
| Medical directors | Who need to coach a group of providers onto the same page, and want the argument written down rather than repeated in person. |
| Program directors | Who know exactly which provider behaviors cost them accounts, and need something to hand over. |
| Urgent care groups | Adding or growing occupational medicine volume. |
Every chapter carries its author's name. None of this is anonymous.
| Manijeh Berenji, MD, MPH, FACOEM, FACPM, FIAIME | Chief of occupational health and medical review officer, VA Long Beach. Qualified Medical Evaluator. Core
OEM residency faculty, UC Irvine. Secretary, Society for Total Worker Health.
Questions on the causation chapters, or a causation opinion you want a second set of eyes on, go to her directly: [email protected] |
| Nick Blonien, DO, MPH | Occupational medicine physician, Froedtert ThedaCare Workforce Health. Former Navy flight surgeon. Performs DOT examinations every week. |
| Efia James, MD, MPH, FACOEM | Medical Director and Chair of Occupational Medicine, Bergen New Bridge Medical Center. Chairs the ACOEM Work Fitness and Disability Section. Previously VA New England regional lead physician. |
| John Koehler, MD, ABPM(OM), CIME | Board certified in occupational and emergency medicine. Pioneered the hybrid urgent care and occupational
medicine clinic model in 1987 and grew it past fifty clinics. Roughly half a million cases treated or
proctored. Editor-in-chief of OccDocOne, his occupational medicine
guidelines and training library.
Reach him at [email protected] |
| Laura Radke, MD | Senior Medical Director, Occupational Health Services, Froedtert ThedaCare Health & Medical College of Wisconsin. Medical Review Officer since 2000. Oversees seven clinics plus on-site manufacturing programs. |
| Lawrence Earl, MD | Editor. President of NAOHP. |
Members collect a code from OccNation and carry it to checkout. Not a member? See what membership includes.
Members — get your code Buy at $79Your copy carries your name on every page.
Clinics, provider groups and health systems buy a copy for each provider. Every one of them gets their own, sent to their own address, with their name on it.
| Copies | Each | Total |
|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | $79 | — |
| 5–9 | $59 | from $295 |
| 10–24 | $49 | from $490 |
| 25–49 | $39 | from $975 |
| 50–99 | $29 | from $1,450 |
| 100+ | $25 | from $2,500 |
Covering an entire system? An enterprise license covers every provider at your organization, however many that turns out to be, and lets you host the guide on your own intranet or LMS. Priced on the size of the organization.
Tell us how many providers and we'll send an invoice the same day.
A designed 143-page PDF, 6×9, with a linked table of contents and PDF bookmarks. Reads well on a tablet and prints cleanly if you'd rather have it on the desk.
Not at this price. The guide is educational material. We're evaluating an enduring-material accreditation for a separate CME edition — if that's what you need, say so and we'll tell you when it's available.
No. It's the same expertise, rebuilt as a reference. Reorganized by clinical domain instead of session order, edited into prose, cross-referenced, and expanded where the sessions ran short. It also resolves a few figures the live sessions left open, and every contributor reviewed and corrected their own chapters.
Current as of publication, and honest about it. Where a figure changes on a schedule — OSHA penalty amounts being the obvious one — the guide gives the current figure, explains that it moves, and tells you which primary source to check. Appendix C collects all of it in one place.
Each copy is licensed to one named reader, and carries that name in the footer of every page. For a group, buy a copy for each provider at the volume prices above — email [email protected] with your provider count, or reply to any NAOHP newsletter or email.
Thirty days, no questions. Email [email protected] and we'll refund in full.
Questions first? Email [email protected].
Published by the National Association of Occupational Health Professionals. Developed from the provider track of the NAOHP Virtual Conference 2026, September 17–18, 2026.
Each chapter reflects the clinical judgment and practice of its named author. Opinions are the authors' own and do not represent the position of any employer, institution, carrier, or agency. This guide is educational and is not a substitute for the governing regulation.