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Workers Comp Insider 
About workers compensation insurance, risk management, workplace health and safety, occupational medicine, and related topics.
Post Frequency: 1/day Last Entry: November 20, 2009 at 12:57:06 Recent Entries: 357
By Lynch Ryan
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Housekeepers, Revisited
Posted on November 20, 2009Back in September we blogged the mass layoffs of housekeepers at the Hyatt Hotels in Boston. After unknowingly training their replacements, long-term employees were laid off, their jobs taken over by employees of a temp firm called Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS)...
State Rankings: Why is Massachusetts at the Top?
Posted on November 19, 2009Recently, in one of his Risk & Insurance columns, our friend and colleague, Peter Rousmaniere, wrote a piece examining workers? compensation costs and benefits among the various states. There are a few organizations that do this annually. In my opinion, the most scholarly work is done by The National Academy of Social Insurance...
Cavalcade of Risk: Short and Sweet
Posted on November 18, 2009Jason Shafrin of Healthcare Economist has posted the latest edition of Cavalcade of Risk. It's a pungent mix of interesting items and well worth a few minutes of your time. Readers will be rewarded with a nice precis on the nature and predictability of risk, along with the story of an English company called the French Connection, which achieved notoriety...
Workers Comp Insider Wins Top National Blog Award
Posted on November 17, 2009Well, bust our balloons and call us surprised! We learned yesterday that the Lexis Nexis Workers? Compensation Law Center has honored the Workers Comp Insider with the award of Top National Workers? Compensation blog of 2009. With so many excellent blogs being written now, we?re proud and humbled at the same time...
The Geography of Health: US vs. Them
Posted on November 16, 2009Given the discouraging and often appalling level of debate on health insurance in America, it was refreshing to view the PBS Frontline broadcast ?Sick Around the World,? a documentary that dispassionately analyzed different health care systems from five developed countries: Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland...
Hot off the press: Health Wonk Review; other news notes
Posted on November 12, 2009Louise Norris has posted a very simpsons-esque edition of Health Wonk Review at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. Of course, commentary on the Affordable Health Care for America Act is front and center. This issue is also packed with such diverse topics as limericks and Japanese organized crime bosses...
Promising PTSD and TBI research holds hope for better treating injured veterans
Posted on November 11, 2009On this Veteran's Day, here's a salute to all the veterans and active military service members out there. In the shadow of the horrific events at Fort Hood, this day of commemoration takes on a particular poignancy. Here at Workers Comp Insider, we have a tendency to view things through the lens of dis-ability and the restoration work-ability because that's...
A Matter of Time: Independent Contractors Morph into Employees
Posted on November 10, 2009We turn yet again to the ever-troubling issue of independent contractors. In today's case we examine a situation where two individuals, beginning as legitimate independent contractors, morph over time into employees. It's a cautionary tale that demonstrates what is true today may no longer be true tomorrow...
Disabled Carpenter Climbs a Mountain
Posted on November 09, 2009Christopher Robin Briejer used to be a carpenter. He suffered a back injury in 2000 and was disabled from work. Except that he apparently kept on working. In 2003 he hurt his back again while working without comp coverage. He claimed the new injury was a recurrence of the 2000 incident...
Compensable Shampoo?
Posted on November 06, 2009Ginger Wilson works as a librarian in Montgomery County, Virginia. One day she arrived at work, got out of her car and headed for the library entrance. Then she remembered that she had a hair appointment at noon, so she returned to the car and opened the door to fetch a bottle of shampoo...
Cavalcade of Risk & other workers' comp news briefs
Posted on November 05, 2009Debbie Dragon or Wise Bread hosts this week's Cavalcade of Risk, which she dubs the "the How Much Assurance Does Your Insurance Offer edition." As usual, a good source of some of the best biweekly risk-related posts in the blogosphere! OSHA - frequent citations - OSHA recently announced its Top 10 Enforcement Citations...
OSHA issues largest fine on record to BP
Posted on November 03, 2009At the end of last week, OSHA issued $87 million in penalties against BP for failure to make make the changes which were specified in a settlement agreement related to the 2005 explosion at a Texas refinery which killed 15 and injured more than 170 others...
The Tennessee Solution
Posted on November 02, 2009It's safe to say that no state has really solved the independent contractor/sole proprietor conundrum. Rather than require comp coverage for all workers, most states either exempt sole proprietors from coverage or make it optional. As a result, many small construction sites are full of "sole proprietors...
Halloween edition of Health Wonk Review; other news notes from the blogs
Posted on October 29, 2009Our local neighbor Tinker Ready of Boston Health News has done a most excellent job in her illustrated Halloween edition of Health Wonk Review ? she even included photos from her local haunted house. Go visit now: Health Wonk Review: Killer viruses and the undead public option - lots of good posts in an entertaining format...
FedEx Sued: Mooning in Moon Township?
Posted on October 27, 2009Labor officials of three states have written to FedEx, announcing their intention to file suit for "widespread, long-term, and unlawful employment practices." We have blogged this employment law conundrum many times (search "independent contractors" in the box to the right)...
Workers Comp Insider Named to LexisNexis Top 25 WC Blogs
Posted on October 26, 2009We thought we'd toot our own horn a little this morning. We were pleased to find a note in our mailbox from LexisNexis telling us that we had been included in the Top 25 Blogs for Workers Compensation and Workplace Issues. Here's what they had to say: Considered by many as the gold standard for workers? comp blogs, the Workers?...
Cavalcade of Risk's spooky pre-Halloween edition
Posted on October 21, 2009Did you know that this week is Protect Your Identity Week? Identity fraud seems like a rather timely theme for the week leading up to the nation's second most-popular holiday, noted for widespread trickery, mayhem and identity assumption. All levity aside, Halloween holds a fair amount of risk, so here are some risk reduction tips for the homeowner, the employer,...
Inferno: Combustible dust explosion at Imperial Sugar - video report
Posted on October 20, 2009We recently posted about the Imperial Sugar Company explosion report issued by the US Chemical Safety Board, but more recently we found a video version, which we think is well worth the nine and a half minutes it takes to view it. Using computer graphics, it clearly explains how the accident happened and the conditions that led to it...
Not Exactly a Rush to Judgment
Posted on October 19, 2009Kris Indergard used to work on the railroad. Then she hurt her knee (partly work related), had surgery and was out of work for over a year. Her doctor established "permanent" restrictions. Indergard wanted to return to work, so Georgia Pacific sent her for a physical capacity exam (PCE)...
Health Wonk Review; also, the crazed chimp case and workers comp
Posted on October 15, 2009It's Health Wonk Review week, and the happenings are at Hank Stern's place this week. Please visit InsureBlog for the Lean, Mean, and Clean edition of Health Wonk Review. Was chimp mauling work-related? In other news this week, who can forget last February's horrific mauling by Travis the chimpanzee that left Charla Nash disfigured and blind? Charla's extensive injuries are...
The Swine Flu, the ADA and Lawyers on the Prowl
Posted on October 14, 2009You might not think that the H1N1 virus, commonly know as swine flu, has anything to do with the ADA. Well, you clearly have not been reading Nation's Restaurant News. Lisa Jennings writes a complex and cautionary tale for restaurant managers, warning them to back off from asking obviously sick employees whether they have the swine flu...
Focus on fraud
Posted on October 13, 2009States offer public tools to curb premium fraud Massachusetts has recently announced an online tool to verify that an employer has workers' compensation coverage. The tool can be accessed from the Department of Industrial Accidents site. In addition to helping employees to verify that they will be covered should they be injured on the job, businesses may also want to...
Annals of Fraud: Corrections Officer in Need of Correcting?
Posted on October 08, 2009Stephen Zaczynski, 49, is a lieutenant with the Connecticut Department of Correction. He claimed an on-the-job injury in September of 2008 and collected over $12,000 in benefits. While on disability, he continued to run a company he co-owned, New England Pellet...
It's Cavalcade of Risk week; that and other news briefs
Posted on October 07, 2009Feeling risky? Cavalcade of Risk #89 is posted at David Williams' Health Business Blog. David is a master of the brief synopsis making it a very user-friendly compilation to browse. Other news briefs Fire Prevention - We're right in the middle of Fire Prevention Week, a good time to communicate with your employees about fire safety at work as well...
Annals of Insurance: The Battered Need Not Apply?
Posted on October 06, 2009I'm guessing that you never thought of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Well, you haven't tried to file a claim in one of the seven states that permit health insurers to deny coverage for the battered. The seven are Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming, plus the District of Columbia...
California Comp: Personal Responsibility?
Posted on October 05, 2009Fernando Martinez worked for the D. H. Smith Company, as did his two sons. The company provided Martinez and his sons a Ford F350 flatbed to drive to and from work. Because Martinez did not have a driver's license, only the sons were to operate the vehicle...
New Health Wonk Review posted; other noteworthy news
Posted on October 01, 2009For another biweekly issue of the best of the health policy blogs, Brady Augustine hosts The Boys (and Girls) of October edition of Health Wonk Review at medicaidfirstaid. Get a little baseball nostalgia with your health policy. For our neighbors in the Boston area, Brady recalls the era of Carlton Fisk, Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, and Luis Tiant...
The AIG Saga, Revisited: Gang Wars in Three Piece Suits
Posted on September 29, 2009AIG may have lost a bit of its swagger - that's what happens when your stock tanks and the government has to bail you out to the tune of $150 billion, give or take a few billion. But tough guys don't dance, they fight back. AIG is suing NCCI and a host of major workers comp carriers (Travelers, The Hartford,...
Imperial Sugar Refinery report: routine housekeeping might have prevented explosion
Posted on September 29, 2009A year and a half after the Imperial Sugar combustible dust explosion, the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued its final report on the explosion, which killed 14 workers and injured 36 others, leaving some with permanent, life-altering conditions. In short, the CSB found inadequate housekeeping and maintenance, largely preventable conditions...
Annals of Health: Why Smokers Cannot Quit
Posted on September 28, 2009In all of our discussions about controlling the cost of workers comp, we continually come up against two lifestyle issues that have a direct impact on costs: obesity and smoking. Let's leave obesity for another day and focus on smoking. According to a compelling article by Stephen Smith in the Boston Globe, 70 percent of smokers want to stop, but...
9-11 Workers Compensation - Report on 45,000 World Trade Center Cases
Posted on September 25, 2009In September, the New York State Workers' Compensation Board released a 59-page report on World Trade Center Cases in the New York Workers? Compensation System (PDF), along with a reminder that the clock is ticking for rescue and clean-up workers to register service...
This week's assorted news briefs
Posted on September 23, 2009Spotlight on Rating Agencies - Claire Wilkinson of Insurance Information Institute's blog posts on a public hearing to be held by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) tomorrow. Insurance Execs Not Confident of Underwriting Profit Over Next 3 Years - results of annual survey conducted by KPMG Obese Workers? Comp Claims Far Exceed Slimmer Employee Costs - report on...
Not-So-Good Housekeeping
Posted on September 22, 2009Lucine Williams, 41, worked as a housekeeper for the Hyatt hotel chain in Boston for over 20 years. She earned $15.32 an hour, plus a fairly robust benefit package that included health, dental and a 401(k). That's where Katie Johnson Chases's story begins in the Boston Globe, but it hardly ends there...
Fresh Health Wonk Review and assorted news briefs from around the web
Posted on September 17, 2009Hot of the presses, a freshly baked edition of Health Wonk Review posted by Rich Elmore of Healthcare Technology News. There's some really good commentary by some really smart people - including reactions to Obama's speech last week. Getting results from managed care - Joe Paduda posts a list of questions for your work comp managed care vendors over at...
Annals of Dress Codes: With That Ring, I thee Fire!
Posted on September 15, 2009Hawwah Santiago was a "sandwich artist" at a Subway restaurant in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. She was fired after refusing to remove her nose ring while at work. Visible body piercings (other than earrings) violated the company dress code. Ms. Santiago sued, claiming that the nose ring was a practice of her Nuwaibian religion...
Oklahoma: OK!
Posted on September 14, 2009The Insider just returned from a speaking engagement in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The occasion was the annual workers comp conference sponsored by the judiciary that manages comp in the state. I was invited by fellow blogger Judge Tom Leonard, whose blog provides valuable information to comp practitioners in the state...
More on the work comp-financed weight loss surgery ruling
Posted on September 11, 2009Charles Wilson of AP has written an article about the Indiana court ruling which determined that Boston's The Gourmet Pizza must pay for an employee's weight loss surgery under workers comp. For the article, Wilson spoke with attorneys representing both sides of the issue, as well as our own Tom Lynch for the workers comp perspective...
Cavalcade of Risk, dereriorating market, breast cancer, labor unions, and more
Posted on September 10, 2009Cavalcade of Risk #87 is brought to you from the land down under - Andrew of Australia's OzRisk is this week's host - check it out! Deterioration in Work Comp market - In his blog Comp Time, Roberto Ceniceros discusses a grim recent A.M. Best report pointing to deteriorating conditions in the workers comp industry...
Study reveals widespread labor law violations for low-wage workers
Posted on September 08, 2009According to the Department of Labor's site on the history of Labor Day, the holiday is a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. But for low wage workers, there isn't much to celebrate this holiday...
Health Wonk Review and other news briefs
Posted on September 03, 2009Jared Rhoads has posted a fresh Health Wonk Review at The Lucidicus Project. There are many interesting posts running the gamut: healthcare reform, home birth, hospice, hypertension and a variety of other topics that the health bloggers found noteworthy in the last two weeks...
California Scheming, Revisited
Posted on September 02, 2009State governments are scrambling for cash and looking, it appears, in all the wrong places. Back in April we blogged the abortive attempt by the state of Colorado to use the claim reserves from its state-run workers comp fund to plug the deficit hole: a bad idea that died a quick death in the thin mountain air...
Thumbs Down on New York Texting Ban?
Posted on September 01, 2009As a follow up to Julie Ferguson's gruesome imagery from Monday's blog, we find Clyde Haberman's entertaining piece in the New York Times about the state's new statute outlawing texting. As of November 1, it will be illegal for anyone to drive and text in the Empire State...
Brutal, graphic video aimed at teens: don't text while driving
Posted on August 31, 2009There's been quite a lot of media coverage on the high risk of texting while driving and several states are lining up to issue bans or restrictions on the practice. We recently featured a texting while driving game that let's you get a rough gauge of how you'd fare while texting at the wheel...
Health and safety news from the blogosphere
Posted on August 26, 2009Money-Driven Medicine - Maggie Mahar, one of the regular Health Wonk bloggers who we admire, is author of the book Money driven medicine: the real reason health care costs so much. Her book has been made into a documentary by Alex Gibney, the producer noted for his documentary expo Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room...
Dying to Find Fault in Wyoming
Posted on August 24, 2009Wyoming might be a good place to work, but it's also a good place to die at work. The mortality rate for occupational injuries is three times the national average, with 15.6 fatalities per 100,000 workers. Many of these fatalities occur in the oil fields, where "roughnecks" make pretty good wages in exchange for working in relatively dangerous conditions...
News roundup: Health Wonk Review, WC recovery, fatalities, joint & several, AIG and web tools
Posted on August 21, 2009Things are sure getting ugly out there in the national debate on health policy. Read what the health policy wonks in the blogosphere have to say about all this - a fresh Health Wonk Review is posted over at David Williams Health Business Blog. The recovery and WC - Joe Paduda offers an excellent analysis of the likely impact of...
The Cost of Getting Better
Posted on August 20, 2009Earlier this week, my colleague Julie Ferguson blogged an intriguing case in Indiana, where Adam Childers, an obese pizza baker, suffered a back injury when he was hit by a swinging freezer door. He was unable to get better due to his obesity. As a result, the Indiana court ordered the employer to pay for weight reduction surgery, to be...
California Fraud Bill: The Solution is a Problem
Posted on August 19, 2009California has a California-sized fraud problem, with much of action in the medical arena. Unscrupulous providers are billing for services that are never provided, often under the names of people who have never been injured. It's identity theft targeted at businesses, not individuals...
Compensable weight loss surgery? A new wrinkle in obesity
Posted on August 18, 2009Yesterday, my colleague blogged about employers that refuse to hire smokers and cited another employer who would like to extend that ban to obese applicants. Health-related matters and their associated costs are challenging for employers and we expect they will continue to be played out in the courts...
Fire the Smokers! Tax the Fat?
Posted on August 17, 2009Back in December of 2006 we blogged the story of Scott Rodrigues, a new hire of the Scotts lawn care company, who was fired after failing a drug test. No news here, perhaps, except that the drug in his system, nicotine is perfectly legal. Scott's is self-insured for health benefits, so they have a vested interest in making sure that...
Cavalcade of Risk, Downunder style
Posted on August 13, 2009This week's Cavalcade has gone global. Our New Zealand blog neighbor Russell Hutchinson of the Chatswood Consulting Blog has posted the Downunder version of Cavalcade of Risk. In addition to doing a roundup of posts from the usual suspects, he's amassed a selection of risk-related posts from New Zealand bloggers...
Independent Contractors: The Bare Essentials
Posted on August 12, 2009The King Arthur Lounge in Chelsea, MA does not exactly bring to mind the Knights of the Round Table. It's a tough place in a tough town - a strip joint with a motel attached (don't ask, don't tell). The strippers had to work under some pretty difficult conditions...
Can you hear me now? Work-related injuries for musicians
Posted on August 11, 2009Last week, 61-year old rock musician Steven Tyler fell off the stage and suffered a broken shoulder, along with stitches in his head and back. He has had to cancel upcoming shows, though it's likely he'll be on a self-imposed return-to-work plan in the near future...
The End of Civil Discourse?
Posted on August 10, 2009We live, alas, in interesting times. As the health care debate spirals downward, the fault lines in our culture become more and more evident. On one side, anti-reformers stack town meetings to prevent any meaningful dialogue from taking place. These folks are even trying to intimidate unions...
Health Wonk Review's Recess Edition and news from the blogosphere
Posted on August 06, 2009Congress may be on vacation but the dedicated health policy bloggers are certainly on the case so you should face no shortage of wonkery. Jaan Sidorov has posted the August Recess Edition of Health Wonk Review at Disease Management Care Blog - well worth your perusal...
Distractions Behind the Wheel, Revisited
Posted on August 04, 2009The other Nicholas Sparks is in a bit of trouble: not the well-known writer, but an obscure 25 year old tow truck driver from upstate New York. The lesser known Sparks has earned himself a place in the Business Hall of Shame when he raised multi-tasking to new heights (or better, depths)...
Compensable Fun
Posted on August 03, 2009There is an ongoing debate concerning the compensability of injuries that occur during company sponsored recreation. As Dr. Suess might say, "These things are fun and fun is good," except when your employer makes you do it. There is a fine line between employees participating because they want to, as opposed to feeling that they have to...
New Cavalcade of Risk; other news briefs
Posted on July 30, 2009Nancy Germond is hosting this week's Cavalcade of Risk at her blog, Insurance Copywriter. She should get hazardous duty pay - she tells us that it is 113 degrees by noon on any given day in Phoenix - yikes. Nancy's post covers topics as diverse as damaged guitars, dog health, and - of course - the health care debate...
Homicidal Employers
Posted on July 29, 2009Back in May, we blogged the appalling story of Albania Deleon, a legal immigrant who founded Environmental Compliance Training (ECT), the largest asbestos removal training school in New England. Despite the fact that the training only requires 32 hours, she frequently sold certificates of completion to "students" who never attended classes...
When lightning strikes
Posted on July 28, 2009Summer brings extremes in weather that pose dangers to workers and challenges to employers who must plan for worker safety. This week, four construction workers were hit by lightning in Michigan. A quick Google search demonstrates this is not an anomaly - refinery workers, airport workers, firefighters, farmers and other working people all have too-close encounters with lightning, and a...
Hot off the presses: Health Wonk Review; other WC news notes
Posted on July 23, 2009Paul Testa of New Health Dialogue Blog takes the notion of a carnival to heart while hosting this week's edition of Health Wonk Review: All's Fair in Love and Health Reform. Join him as he takes us along the Midway that is Pennsylvania Avenue, the big tent of bipartisanship, the funhouse mirrors of the health reform debates, and the roller...
Making Safety a Universal Language
Posted on July 21, 2009The following article is a guest post by Joey Lucia, a loss prevention supervisor at Austin-based Texas Mutual Insurance Co., the largest provider of workers? compensation insurance in Texas. Non-English-speaking Hispanic workers present unique safety challenges...
Injured Jocks and Medical Costs
Posted on July 20, 2009College athletics is big business. While athletes are not paid for their efforts (well, some are), they can reap substantial benefits while pursuing glory on the playing fields of their Alma Maters. But athletes, like workers, are prone to injuries. And once injured, they may find themselves liable for the cost of medical treatment...
Injuries at the gym: compensability, incentives, and wellness
Posted on July 16, 2009Roberto Ceniceros blogs about the New York appeals court ruling in Frank P. Torre v. Logic Technology, which awarded workers comp benefits to an employee for an injury sustained in the gym. Usually, injuries sustained in extracurricular activities aren't covered by workers comp, but there are exceptions, such as when injuries occur during "mandatory attendance" events or while an employee...
82nd Cavalcade of Risk
Posted on July 15, 2009Our friends Jay and Louise Norris have posted The 82nd Cavalcade of Risk at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. Louise opens with our recent post on Atul Gawande's health care article and she notes that if her own observations are to be believed, she's seen signs of over-utilization in workers comp medical care, too...
A survivor's story: Iowa teen advocates for farm safety after her near-fatal encounter with a power take-off shaft
Posted on July 14, 2009Earlier this year, legendary baseball great Mark Fidrych died while working on his farm in Northboro, Massachusetts. He was working underneath his truck when his clothing became entangled in a power takeoff (PTO) shaft. PTOs are used to transfer power from tractors or trucks to other machinery...
New Health Wonk Review; other news notes
Posted on July 09, 2009If you find the task of following breaking news developments on the health care reform front a trifle daunting, we have a solution: let the health policy blogosphere's best braniacs dish up and dissect the news for you in bite size portions in the bi-weekly compendium of the best of heath care policy posts...
Spouse as Caregiver: To Pay or Not to Pay
Posted on July 08, 2009Serious workplace injuries often turn spouses into caregivers. So the question becomes, are their services compensable under workers comp? As is so often the case, it depends upon where you live. The Supreme Court of Arizona recently decided a case in the spouse's favor (Sabino Carbajal v...
Atul Gawande's The Cost Conundrum - Why haven't you read it yet?
Posted on July 06, 2009Over the last twenty years, medical costs have gradually, but steadily, replaced indemnity wage replacement as the engine driving the workers' compensation train. This is the same period during which our nation's health care costs have grown from average among OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Economic Development) to double the average (PDF)...
Putrescible Waste
Posted on July 02, 2009There are certain aspects of civilized life that few of us want to experience directly. Once our garbage has disappeared from the curbside, we are unlikely to give it any further thought. We have little curiousity about the desolate environments where this garbage is taken...
Cavalcade of Risk and other news notes
Posted on July 01, 2009Cavalcade of Risk #81 is posted at Jaan Sidorov's Disease Management Care blog. Check it out, covered topics include health care, information technology, personal risk, market risk and more. Confined space - three sanitation workers died when they were overcome by hydrogen sulfide gas in an 18 foot hole at Regal Recycling Company in Queens...
Coordinated Health Care: Now There's An Idea!
Posted on June 29, 2009For the last 3 or 4 years, I've been privileged to be a Trustee at Commonwealth Care Alliance, a Massachusetts non-profit HMO serving dual eligible elderly poor. In this case, "dual eligible" means people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid. CCA does great work, but it's always swimming upstream...
Health Wonk Review's Confederations Cup Edition
Posted on June 25, 2009The most recent edition of Health Wonk Review - the Confederations Cup Edition is freshly posted at Jason Shafrin's Healthcare Economist. Where else can you get the week's highlights of soccer and health care policy all in one place? Quite appropriate because as the health care issue heats up, the debate is getting to be more and more like a...
More on the UCLA lab death of Sheri Sangji
Posted on June 24, 2009Chemical & Engineering News has a followup story on the UCLA lab fire which killed Sheri Sangji in December 2008. The University of California, Los Angeles has paid the OSHA fine but is appealing the state's findings of workplace safety violations. According to the article, UCLA's vice chancellor for legal affairs, said the university's appeal was necessary to ensure "that...
Fail-Safe Failure
Posted on June 23, 2009At least nine people were killed yesterday when a Red Line Metro Rail train crashed into an unmoving train. Washington D.C. trains are equipt with the latest fail-safe technology. Accidents are not supposed to happen: trains are controlled by computers, which theoretically prevent any two trains from occupying the same space at the same time (the textbook definition of an...
Risk Transfer without Risk
Posted on June 22, 2009The Defense Base Act (DBA) was enacted in 1941, to cover the injuries to civilian employees - primarily a few hundred engineers - during the second world war. The act might have worked then, but it certainly is not working now, nearly 70 years later. As we have blogged in the past, the DBA is a boondoggle, generating huge profits...
Vintage safety clips - women in the workplace
Posted on June 18, 2009In searching for some safety videos, we chanced upon these vintage clips about workplace safety for women and supervising women, which we pass along for your amusement and elucidation. We're happy to note that in the ensuing years, there have been significant advances for both women and for safety! The Trouble With Women (1959)...
Cavalcade of Risk #80 is posted; other news notes
Posted on June 17, 2009Get your biweekly fill of risk-related blog posts - Rita Schwab does a great job in hosting Cavalcade of Risk #80 at her blog Supporting Safer Healthcare. And in other news ... Construction - According to the release of a report from the Workers Defense Project, Texas is the most dangerous state in the union for construction workers...
White Man Quits Lousy Job
Posted on June 15, 2009Back in April we blogged some of the formidable problems facing the obsolete, friction-ridden comp system in New York. Two years ago, Elliot Spitzer appointed Zach Weiss to clean up the mess, just as voters had chosen Spitzer to clean up the mess in Albany...
Health Wonk Review - special health care reform issue
Posted on June 11, 2009Joe Paduda has posted this week's Health Wonk Review: Health Reform - what's happening and why. It includes analysis and commentary from our usual participating policy experts - as well as guest commentary from Senator Byron Dorgan (D ND), chair of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, who gives us his thoughts on the importance of reform and a window into...
Will Health Care Reform Crush Workers Comp?
Posted on June 09, 2009If health care reform is the proverbial 800 pound gorilla, then the medical portion of workers comp is a 15 pound Maine Coon cat: it might big for a cat, but compared to a giant gorilla, it is barely noticeable. Nonetheless, this cat is blessed with a very strong notion of what it needs...
Suffering for Art
Posted on June 08, 2009Alan Rosenbaum is a revered professor of art at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He shows students how to work with clay - at least, he used to, until he was disabled by silicosis. Rosenbaum was exposed to silica dust in the clay mixing room and ceramic studios of the university...
Death in the lab: why aren't university labs safer?
Posted on June 04, 2009Earlier this year, 23 year-old research assistant Sheri Sangji suffered an excruciating death after having been engulfed in flames in a UCLA science laboratory. A drop of t-butyl lithium, a substance that ignites on contact with air, spilled on her clothing causing an instant conflagration...
Cavalcade of Risk: 3rd Anniversary Edition, and other news briefs
Posted on June 03, 2009Hank Stern is hosting Third Anniversary Edition of Cavalcade of Risk over at InsureBlog. Hank deserves a pat on the back and many plaudits for all the work he has done in founding and maintaining this carnival. While many contribute and host, he's the real heart and soul behind this operation - so many thanks! New in the blogosphere...
Can You Terminate an Employee on Workers Comp?
Posted on June 02, 2009Here's a question that comes up frequently in our employer seminars: can you terminate an employee who is on workers comp? In general, it's not a good idea. In many states there is a presumption that the termination is in retaliation for filing the comp claim...
Cell Phones: Unsafe at Any Speed?
Posted on June 01, 2009We've been following the tentative steps taken by management to confront a relatively new and ubiquitous risk: the use of cell phones while driving. Most people seem to realize that cell phone use is a dangerous distraction, whether involving talking or, lord help us, texting...
Annals of Fraud: Trifecta for Bay Area GC
Posted on May 29, 2009In the world of workers comp, there is no lack of opportunity for fraud. We've seen doctors rip off the system by billing for services that were either never provided or not needed. We've seen employees fake injuries (relatively rare) or malinger on comp long after injuries have healed...
Bosstown's Health Wonk Review, and assorted other news briefs
Posted on May 28, 2009Check out Health Wonk Review: Bosstown edition. Tinker Ready at Boston Health News makes her debut as host with an informative and entertaining edition of the biweekly roundup of the best of he health policy blogs. News briefs Michael Fox of Jottings By an Employer's Lawyer offers a great rundown of Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor's opinions on labor and...
Aging America: A Looming Catastrophe?
Posted on May 27, 2009Take 78 million Baby Boomers and their retirement plans, mix with a woebegone social security system and the global economic meltdown of 2008/2009. Add in rising health care costs and the insurance industry?s natural propensity to avoid troubling issues, and you have a recipe for a looming catastrophe of the first order...
Compensable Sunshine, Revisted
Posted on May 26, 2009Our blog last week linking skin cancer to workers comp has already generated a few comments. "Workers comp attorney" raises some interesting questions: (1) How much weight do you give to the person's leisure activities and/or length of employment? It seems these would certainly be factors in assessing whether the employment is the predominate cause...
Working Outdoors: Skin Cancer and Workers Comp
Posted on May 21, 2009With the full heat of summer bearing down on us, the Insider has deputized its readership to become informal safety inspectors: the next time you leave the office, observe any people who are working outdoors. Your checklist should include the fundamental safety drill: fall protection for height exposures; personal protective equipment such as hard hats, work boots and goggles; secure...
Cavalcade of Risk; our Twitter debut; a few good blogs
Posted on May 20, 2009Hot off the presses - Richard Eskow has posted the most recent edition of Cavalcade of Risk. He's got a good round-up of risk-related posts, but he had hazardous duty posting it due to a huge number of spam submissions. Spammy, fly-by-night blogs seem to be proliferating, grrr...
Collision course: the potential impact of Chrysler's bankruptcy & sale on state workers' comp systems
Posted on May 19, 2009Roberto Ceniceros of Business Insurance has been tracking the potential impact that a Chrysler bankruptcy and sale could have on state workers comp systems. In a story last week, he reports that Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has taken legal action to protect the state...
Albania Deleon: Death in the Classroom
Posted on May 18, 2009Albania Deleon is a entrepreneur. A legal immigrant and naturalized citizen from the Dominican Republic, she founded and operated Environmental Compliance Training (ECT) in Methuen, Massachusetts, the largest asbestos removal training school in New England...
Health Wonk Review: the biweekly smorgasbord of the best fare in the health care policy blogs
Posted on May 14, 2009Welcome to Health Wonk Review, our bi-weekly smorgasbord of the best that the policy wonks have dished out on some of the most noteworthy healthcare blogs over the prior fortnight. We have an extensive sampling of tasty and nutritious treats, with lots of brain food among the fare - so without further ado, we offer this week's buffet...
Noteworthy blog and Twitter finds
Posted on May 13, 2009We surf the web so you don't have to! From time to time, we like to bring your attention to some new or noteworthy blogs related to workers' comp, healthcare, or other work-related matters. Now we're finding some Twitter feeds, too. Here's our current crop: Judge Tom Talks - Judge Tom Leonard is one of ten judges at the Oklahoma...
Texting and Driving: Dying to Communicate
Posted on May 11, 2009Aiden Quinn is 24 years old. He drives a trolley for the Mass Bay Transit Authority (MBTA or T) in Boston. He has a mediocre driving record, with three speeding violations (while operating a motor vehicle). Last week he was driving a trolley underground between Park Street and Government Center...
Cavalcade of Risk and some quick links
Posted on May 07, 2009Joe Kristan is hosting the latest edition of Cavalcade of Risk at his Tax Update Blog. Unsurprisingly, swine flu is a common themes in this issue - but there's a grab bag of other risk-related topics, too - check it out! Other links of note: May is Electrical Safety month...
A Firefighter Fights Back
Posted on May 06, 2009Over the past year, we blogged about a couple firefighters who abused the workers comp system. First there was the muscular Albert Arroyo, a Boston firefighter who participated in body building competitions, while collecting comp for a work-related disability...
Barab signals OSHA changes, heightened enforcement
Posted on May 05, 2009We recently announced Jordan Barab's appointment as Acting OSHA administrator and, as expected, he is losing no time in making changes. Last week, he testified at a hearing held by the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the House Committee on Education and Labor, outlining some immediate OSHA changes...
Health Wonk Review and other news from the blogosphere
Posted on April 30, 2009Health Wonk Review - Bob Laszewski hosts this weeks edition of the best healthcare posts on the Web! - check out this week's Health Wonk Review. Pharma - Joe Paduda discusses a planned FDA ban on certain medications which is likely to take a high toll on workers' comp since they are "old stand-bys, drugs that have long been used...
Swine Flu part 2 - links to helpful resources for employers
Posted on April 29, 2009To follow up on my colleague Jon's Monday post on Swine Flu Meets Workers Comp, we've compiled a list of swine flu news and planning resources for employers. How Employers Should Respond to the Swine Flu Outbreak - the Workplace Safety Compliance Practice Group of the employment law firm Jackson Lewis suggests 8 steps for employers to take in responding...
Indoor Football: Piling On the Sanctions
Posted on April 28, 2009The Sioux Fall Storm are members of the Indoor Football league (not to be confused with the Arena Football League, although, truth be told, I am confused). They have won the league championship four years in a row (bet you did not know that) and were well on their way to a 5th title, having won their first six games...
Swine Flu Meets Workers Comp
Posted on April 27, 2009It's only Monday morning and many of us are just refocusing after a weekend of gardening, football drafts, NBA playoffs, baseball (Ellsbury steals home!), so we are probably not quite ready to think about the unthinkable: a potential swine flu pandemic, originating in Mexico and already active in several major American cities...
Cavalcade of Risk #76
Posted on April 22, 2009SuperSaver at My Wealth Builder hosts this week's edition of Cavalcade of Risk with an assortment of posts on five categories of risk: Insurance, Health, Business, Investment and Personal. RIMS Update - Joe Paduda is blogging about RIMS - follow his comments for day 1 or day 2, or follow his Twitter feed...
AIG in Iraq: A Cruel Way to Make a Buck
Posted on April 21, 2009AIG has been in the news mostly for its ingenious method of losing money: insuring the riskiest possible financial transactions and tanking after these risks go bad. But give the biggest insurance company in the world some credit. They still know how to make money the old fashioned way: collecting premiums and denying claims...
Great news for worker safety: Jordan Barab named to OSHA
Posted on April 19, 2009In catching up on blog reading this weekend, we find we missed an important piece of good news last week: via Liz Borkowski at The Pump Handle, we learn that longtime safety advocate and erstwhile safety blogger Jordan Barab has been named Deputy Assistant Secretary for OSHA and Acting Assistant Secretary...
Fresh Health Wonk Review; Safety resources
Posted on April 16, 2009Glenn Laffel has a a new edition of Health Wonk Review posted over at Pizaazz - the "US Health Care Carousel of Progress" edition. Glenn is one of our newest contributors to HWR - check out his blog, too. Coal Mining - Check out Coal Tattoo, a blog by Ken Ward Jr...
Ask yourself: Do you feel lucky today?
Posted on April 15, 2009Today, we thought we'd focus on risk in the larger sense rather than just in the workplace. This is prompted by our having chanced upon an interesting article by John Goekler, who poses the question, The Most Dangerous Person in the World? Not to offer a spoiler, but he answers this question at the outset of the article, and the...
Fancy Pants and Broken Lives
Posted on April 14, 2009The Sunday Times had an article about tough times in Palm Beach, where the super-wealthy reside. They like to shop at Trillion, a store that kind of indicates, by the name, that if you have to ask how much something costs you don't belong in the store...
When the Bond is Broken: Workers Comp and Lay Offs
Posted on April 13, 2009Last week Julie Ferguson blogged the interface between workers comp and recessions. For the most part, the news is good: during tough economic times, the frequency of injuries goes down, as workers hunker down and do their jobs as well and as safely as possible...
Workers comp and safety in a recession
Posted on April 09, 2009Recessions tend to place downward pressure on workers' compensation frequency, according to NCCI economists who made a recent presentation to the Casualty Actuarial Society. That makes sense. Reduced payrolls means fewer claims. Plus, with potential layoffs looming, some employees may be reluctant to report injuries - which might be part of the reason why there can be an uptick in...
Rocky Mountain Two Step: Destabilize and Deprivitize?
Posted on April 09, 2009Colorado, like most states, is facing a serious budget deficit. They are scrambling to balance the budget. So the legislature came up with the brilliant idea of tapping the reserves set aside by Pinnacol, the state's largest provider of workers comp coverage, with 70 percent of businesses in the fold...
A World of Risk
Posted on April 08, 2009The latest edition of Cavalcade of Risk, hosted by Joseph Leppard, is available here. Oh my, there's risk aplenty: in health care, in life, in investing and in the economy. Perhaps it's time to create a Cavalcade of Safe Havens (assuming, of course, that such places still exist)...
OSHA under fire from DOL Inspector General reports
Posted on April 07, 2009OSHA has come under withering criticism in a report from the Department of Labor's inspector general for improperly enforcing safety and health laws against high risk employers with a history of safety violations and/or fatalities. In summarizing the report, Occupational Health & Safety notes: "The March 31 report says EEP [Enforced Enhancement Program] was mismanaged so badly that OSHA did...
The Yogi Berra HWR, plus AIG, Florida lawyers, scaffolding & more news notes
Posted on April 02, 2009Anthony Wright hosts Health Wonk Review at Health Access WeBlog this week, and he serves up some of the wit and wisdom of baseball great Yogi Berra with this week's best of the health care blogs. It's a perfect posting for our times when "the future ain't what it used to be...
New York Workers Comp: Truth Stranger than Friction
Posted on April 01, 2009The New York Times has a fascinating, two-part article about serious problems in New York's workers comp system (parts one and two). New York has long been famous for its bizarre system, which is among the most expensive in the nation, even though its benefits have been among the lowest...
Judge Body-Slams Grapplers
Posted on March 31, 2009Back in September we blogged a lawsuit filed by three former wrestlers of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the colorful circus of flying bodies managed by Vince McMahon. The wrestlers claimed that they were not independent contractors, but employees of WWE and entitled to all the benefits of employment...
Safety Bob ? Charisma in Motion
Posted on March 30, 2009Julie Ferguson's gut-wrenching post from Thursday morning, "It's Spring?and the Start of Trench Death Season," made me think of a truly remarkable gentleman that I met a few months ago in North Carolina ? Bob Synnett. Mr. Synnett, or Safety Bob, as he's known in the Carolinas, is a great big bundle of charismatic energy...
At Work - a photo essay
Posted on March 27, 2009Just a short post we though you might enjoy - At Work, a beautiful portfolio of photos of people's work lives from around the world. This appeared in The Boston Globe's wonderful feature called The Big Picture - if you aren't familiar with it, check out a few of the other topical or news-related photo essays, which are posted every...
It's spring ... and the start of trench death season
Posted on March 26, 2009Almost with the predictability of the swallows returning to Capistrano, the spring ushers in a season of frustratingly preventable trench deaths. Earlier this week, a Baltimore worker narrowly escaped death after spending 6 hours buried up to his chest in dirt...
The high price of fresh tomatoes: more on agricultural slavery in Florida
Posted on March 24, 2009Barry Estabrook of Gourmet takes a look at the tomato harvesting industry in Florida and it's not pretty. In Politics of the Plate: The Price of Tomatoes he suggests that if you've eaten a tomato this winter, it's likely that it was picked by a virtual slave...
Health Care Reform and the Cost of Comp
Posted on March 23, 2009The Mercury News offers some potentially bad news for California employers. After four years of comp reform, with rates dropping a staggering 63 percent, the trend is now headed - perhaps precipitously - in the other direction. The Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau is requesting an increase of 24...
Fresh health policy wonkery at HealthBlawg
Posted on March 20, 2009Visit the "spring has nearly sprung" edition of Health Wonk Review at David Harlow's HealthBlawg - it's an eclectic issue covering posts on health reform, prescription drugs, how social media is reshaping health care, medical tourism, technology, and more...
The Delicate Brain
Posted on March 19, 2009Our guest blogger is colleague Peter Rousmaniere, a columnist for Risk & Insurance magazine and blogger on the immigrant workforce. Beginning with the sudden and unexpected death of actress Natasha Richardson, Peter explores the murky issue of brain injuries, where what appears to be minor may suddenly morph in to a life-threatening - indeed, life ending - catastrophe...
Shift Work and Breast Cancer: A Presumptive Link?
Posted on March 18, 2009Marcellus, a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, muses that there is "something rotten in the state of Denmark." To the contrary, there is a spirit of generosity in Denmark that is increasingly rare in this troubled world. We are dealing here with the issue of compensability of cancers that may or may not be work related...
New day for OSHA?
Posted on March 17, 2009Labor leaders and business leaders are in agreement that the new administration will mean a more activist OSHA, with more targeted investigations and tougher penalties for hiding workplace injuries. Some predict that there will be an increase in standards - although that shouldn't be a tough record to beat since there was only one standard issued under the Bush administration...
AIG: Failure's Fat Rewards
Posted on March 16, 2009We continue to be amazed at the ongoing saga of AIG. We learn in Sunday's New York Times that 400 employees of the financial products unit (yes, the geniuses who destroyed the company) are receiving bonuses ranging from $1,000 (the hard-working and relatively innocent) to $6...
Cavalcade of Risk and Quick News Takes
Posted on March 12, 2009Jason Shafrin of Healthcare Economist hosts this week's great edition of Cavalcade of Risk, and he precedes it with a Surgeon General's warning about possible side effects that might ensue from use of this product. Given that we are living in "interesting times," there is no shortage of good risk reading...
Collapsing Empires at the Hedge Fund Hotel
Posted on March 11, 2009I have a few shares of AIG stock, which is currently trading at 35 cents a share. I do not like to dwell on the pathetic disappearance of this particular asset, so it's an opportune time to seek comfort in history. This is not the first collapse of a financial empire, nor will it be the last...
The effect of obesity and other comorbidities on workers comp
Posted on March 10, 2009Historically, the tendency has been for employers to segment potential employee health and disability issues into two discrete silos: occupational safety, prevention, and other issues related to workers comp are most often managed by risk managers and safety staff...
Health Wonk Review, economic stimulus & insurance, AIG, and choosing MDs for quality
Posted on March 05, 2009News Roundup: Cavalcade of Risk, good Samaritan update, Florida Murray decision follow-on, California fraud; more
Posted on March 02, 2009School Board Needs History Lesson
Posted on February 24, 2009Audeen Jacobs was a teacher in the Clark County (Kentucky) school system. She retired in June 2003, but was hired back on a 100 day contract in the fall of that same year. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she volunteered to sponsor the high school's Beta Club, an honor society that requires students to maintain a specific grade point...
McDonald's: Heroes Need Not Apply
Posted on February 23, 2009Perry Kennon, a thug with a long record, experienced a craving for a Big Mac, so he accompanied a lady friend to a McDonald's in Little Rock, Arkansas. ["I'm lovin' it!"] His lady said something he disapproved of, so he smacked her in the face. McDonald employee Nigel Haskett, 21 at the time, rushed at Kennon and pushed him out...
The Ventless Vent
Posted on February 20, 2009When is a vent not a vent? When it doesn't vent. Here is a toxic conundrum for a Friday, from our neighbors to the north in Vancouver. Appropriate material, perhaps, for the 1,000th Insider entry. For two years Jim Mulally worked as an attendant in an underground parking garage...
Health Wonk Review: The Anti-Spam Edition
Posted on February 19, 2009You've heard about a spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down, but how about Spam as a substitute? It's Health Wonk Review day, and Hank Stern of InsureBlog offers us Health Wonk Review: The Anti-Spam Edition - replete with recipes. Posts range from commentary on the Stimulus package and health reform initiatives to a list of top 50 Medical...
Economic indicators: insurance industry update
Posted on February 18, 2009How has AIG been doing since their big government bailout five months ago? Ieva M. Augustums of Associated Press offers an update: Q: How much has AIG paid back? A: In October, AIG said it would sell off a number of business units to repay the initial $85 billion Fed loan...
Pain as a Variable of Coverage
Posted on February 17, 2009Dr. Scott Haig, an orthopedic surgeon, has a thought-provoking article in Time Magazine on returning to work after surgery. As those of us involved in workers comp know all too well, returning to productive employment is not simply a matter of healing...
Prying the Cell Phone from Your Cold, Dead Hands?
Posted on February 12, 2009The National Safety Council, surely a credible safety organization, has come out for a total ban on cell phone use while driving. The council points to increasing evidence that the distraction of cell phone use - with or without headphones - is a major cause of accidents...
Cavalcade of Risk Issue #71
Posted on February 11, 2009We're pleased to host issue #71 of Cavalcade of Risk here in our humble corner of the web. While risk is ubiquitous, in the current economic climate, times seem even more perilous - particularly when looking at charts for historical job losses during recessions...
Annals of Compensability: Arthur Pierce's Work-Related Fall
Posted on February 10, 2009Arthur Pierce worked for a trucking company in Virginia. In September 2006 he was found lying beside his dump truck. He had suffered a severe brain injury and was unable to communicate any details about what had happened. Physicians speculated that he had fallen from the truck (falls are the number one cause of injuries to drivers), but there was...
News roundup: Letters of credit, nuclear workers, NY construction, collaborative whiteboard, and more
Posted on February 09, 2009Another side effect of the bad economy - Roberto Ceniceros of Business Insurance points to another side effect of the credit crunch - higher collateral costs for many self insureds, particularly those in financially challenged industries, who are scrambling to secure alternatives to their letters of Credit (LOC)...
Comp as Enabler: The Nadya Suleman Story
Posted on February 06, 2009Nadya Suleman recently gave birth to octuplets, six boys and two girls. These newborns join the six other children that were also conceived through in-vitro fertilization. Suleman is a single mother of 14 young children, living at home with her (distressed?) parents...
Health Wonk Review & news from the insurance fraud front
Posted on February 05, 2009Awaiting your perusal, this week's edition of Health Wonk Review. David Williams of Health Business Blog has compiled the best health policy wonkery from the creme de la creme of the health policy blogs. A preview of this week's fare to whet your appetite: Pharma's foibles; Less is more; The profit motive; The wonky section; Navel gazin?; The odd couple;...
Big Holes in the Comp Safety Net
Posted on February 04, 2009We know how James Strickland died. Strickland worked for Bay Area Regional Transit (BART) in San Francisco. On October 14, he was walking east on the westbound track, checking for safety problems. An eastbound train, traveling 70 mph, slammed into him...
Social networking for the safety community
Posted on February 03, 2009You'd have to be living under a rock to be oblivious to the revolution that is online social networking - blogging (hey, that's us!); networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn; social bookmarking services like delicious.com or Stumble Upon; photo sharing sites such as Flickr; video sharing sites like YouTube; microblogging and texting, such as Twitter; and Google mashups...
Wyoming Workers Comp: Frontier Justice?
Posted on February 02, 2009Cody, Wyoming, was founded in part by "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the renowned slaughterer of buffalo. The town bills itself as the eastern gateway to Yellowstone National Park. "A small western town with a big city attitude." Sally Spooner, a long-time school teacher in the town, might question the "big city attitude...
Annals of Accident Investigation: The Eyes Have It?
Posted on January 29, 2009Clyde Stroman, 53, of Elmira, NY, worked as a youth aide at the MacCormick Secure Center in Brooktondale, NY. He worked with some pretty tough kids. While restraining a "client" back in August 2008, Stroman injured his right eye. If you were his supervisor, filling out the incident report, you should write: "Injury to right eye...
Cavalcade of Risk #70 and other news of note
Posted on January 28, 2009Our friend David Williams is the host of this week's Cavalcade of Risk at Health Business Blog - check it out. And while visiting David's neighborhood, you might want to read an interesting recent guest post by Dr. Michael Ozner about The Great American Heart Hoax: Economic and Political Implications...
The Politics of Work-Related Illness
Posted on January 26, 2009Ed Abney is 53 year old tool-and-die worker with Parkinson's disease. For over 20 years, he was literally up to his elbows in drums of the powerful solvent, trichloroethylene (TCE). He worked for the now defunct Dresser Industries in Kentucky. As we read in Felicity Barringer's excellent article in the New York Times, Abney's illness was probably caused by work,...
Health Wonk Review is posted
Posted on January 22, 2009Fun! Jaan Sidorov has posted a fun and creative Post Inaugural Health Wonk Review Celebration Event at Disease Management Care Blog, where he adds a little music to the wonkery. It's a fun edition, but with lots of substance, too....
Noteworthy blog discoveries
Posted on January 21, 2009Ah, we remember the good old days just a few short years ago when the insurance blog landscape was barren and lonely. Now, we are delighted to see a profusion of insurance related blogs, with new entries cropping up every month. Here are a few recent discoveries that we've found noteworthy...
Grace Under Pressure
Posted on January 20, 2009When a flock of geese flew into two engines of US Airways Flight 1549 last Friday, pilot Chesley Sullenberger was confronted with a set of circumstances he had never seen before. Sure, the flight simulators may have thrown a similar scenario at him, but this was real: he had a plane loaded with 155 passengers and a crew of six...
Drunk at Work in Peru
Posted on January 15, 2009Now that Robert Aurbach's compelling discussion of bankruptcy has concluded, we thought readers might enjoy a quick look at an issue that none of us can do anything about: drunken workers in Peru. Peru's top court has ruled that workers cannot be fired simply for being drunk on the job...
Bankruptcy and Workers' Compensation: A Silver-Plated Bullet
Posted on January 14, 2009Part three of a three-part guest post series on bankruptcy and workers compensation by Robert Aurbach, CEO of Uncommon Approach.. Part 1: Bankruptcy and Workers' Compensation: Broken Promises, Broken Lives Part 2: Reducing the Conflict Between Bankruptcy and Workers' Compensation Three changes are proposed to the Federal Bankruptcy Code: changing the accrual of workers' compensation claims for bankruptcy purposesallowing them...
Reducing the Conflict Between Bankruptcy and Workers' Compensation
Posted on January 13, 2009Part two of a three-part guest post series on bankruptcy and workers compensation by Robert Aurbach, CEO of Uncommon Approach. The last posting introduced Joe, the injured employee of a self-insured employer, and discussed the ways the workers' compensation system failed him when the employer filed for Federal Bankruptcy protection...
Bankruptcy and Workers' Compensation: Broken Promises, Broken Lives
Posted on January 12, 2009With the difficult economy, the issue of "what happens to a workers' comp claim in the event of a bankruptcy" is on the minds of many of our readers. We?ve addressed the issue of bankruptcy in the past. Today, we are pleased to introduce a more detailed three-part guest post series on bankruptcy and workers compensation by Robert Aurbach, CEO...
Health Wonk Review's first 2009 edition; plus, podcast on cardiac workers' comp claims
Posted on January 09, 2009This year's first edition of Health Wonk Review is posted at The Health Care Blog. Host Brian Klepper has done an excellent job culling out what he describes as "... the far-ranging insights, jabs, diatribes, rants and enthusiasms of this edition of Health Wonk Review, which features analysis and exegesis as entertainment...
West Virginia Builds a Pool
Posted on January 06, 2009We have been following the developments in West Virginia, where a once monopolistic state for workers comp insurance has been transformed into a competitive market. The well-designed transition began in 2006 with the creation of BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Company, which for a couple of years offered the only available insurance to employers...
Cavalcade of Risk and news notes for the New Year
Posted on January 05, 2009Happy new year to all our readers! While we were taking a short holiday break, Louise at Colorado Health Insurance Insider was toiling away to produce a special New Year?s Eve Cavalcade Of Risk. There's some good reading there, it's good way to ease your way back into some of the health care issues that lie before us in the...
Greatest hits of 2008; Top ten of all time
Posted on December 30, 2008It's that time of year when the media takes a look back at the top stories of the preceding year so we thought we'd jump on the seasonal bandwagon and offer a retrospective of our top posts for 2008, along with a list of the top 10 most popular posts of all time...
The Hazards of Deconstruction
Posted on December 22, 2008When we think of safety on the construction site, its usually in the context of new and renovated buildings. But deconstruction is fraught with hazards, too. Just as the timing and sequence of events in building must be constantly reviewed from a safety perspective, deconstruction requires a similar review...
The Big Squeeze on FedEx
Posted on December 19, 2008We have frequently blogged the labor issues at FedEx, the ubiquitous delivery giant. FedEx relies on "independent contractor" drivers for business and neighborhood deliveries. An interesting article by Corey Dade in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) discusses the potential impact of a Democratic Congress on FedEx's business model...
Cavalcade of Risk; introducing some blog finds
Posted on December 17, 2008Nancy Germond, blogger at Insurance Copywriter makes a fine debut as host of this weeks Cavalcade of Risk #67. Its a good issue. Plus, we like Nancy - weve linked to some of her risk management columns at AllBusiness before. Note her recent timely column: Top Ten Ways to Avoid a Santa Suit...
OSHA rule on Personal Protective Equipment in effect January 12, 2009
Posted on December 16, 2008Last week, OSHA unveiled its final rule on Clarification of Employer Duty To Provide Personal Protective Equipment and Train Each Employee. To comply with this standard, beginning January 12, 2009, employers must provide personal protective equipment and hazards training for each employee covered by the standards...
Health Wonk Review, medical costs, price hikes, joint & several liability, and more
Posted on December 11, 2008Health Wonk Review ? The ?Just the Facts, Ma?am? Edition - hosted by Vince Kuraitis at e-CareManagement - Dragnet fans take note! NCCI report on medical benefits - The medical share of total losses has grown dramatically ? from just over 40% in the early 1980s to almost 60% today...
Dollar Tree's Investment
Posted on December 09, 2008On December 1 we blogged the story of Taneka Talley, an employee of the Dollar Tree stores who was stabbed to death at work by a deranged racist. We believed that Talley's death was compensable under workers comp, as she died at work, performing her job (she was stocking shelves at the time of the assault)...
Maryland officials monitoring GM solvency related to workers compensation
Posted on December 08, 2008With the Big 3 automakers discussing potential fallout if the federal government doesn't come through with a bailout package, there is one aspect of the fallout that would likely be a mere footnote in the wake of such a massive failure, but that would be of interest to thousands of workers: the issue of what happens to workers compensation claims...
Walmart's Killer Bargains
Posted on December 04, 2008Jdimytai "Jimbo" Damour took a temp job for the Christmas rush at the Walmart in Green Acres Mall on Long Island. Some rush. When a crowd of bargain hunters pushed into the store at 5 am on "Black Friday," Damour, a 34 year old who weighed 270 pounds, fell to the floor and was trampled...
Cavalcade of Risk #66 and sundry workers comp news notes
Posted on December 03, 2008Cavalcade of Risk #66 is posted at Political Calculations, where the blogger who goes under the alias of Ironman takes an innovative approach by offering two editions with all posts presented in a grid-like format, applying a blog post rating system. See Investment Grade and Kit and Caboodle versions for this week's entries...
Icon Cleaners: Amityville Horror Revisited
Posted on December 02, 2008For many of us, Amityville NY brings to mind a book (and movie) called the Amityville Horror, which tell the story of an innocent couple moving into a house whose prior inhabitants had been murdered. The house is haunted by the ghosts of the deceased...
Legal Advice on the Cheap
Posted on December 01, 2008Dollar Tree is a national company with stores in all 48 states. Everything they offer costs a buck. (They are doing very nicely in this recession.) Here's how they describe themselves: Walk into one of our stores and it hits you immediately: this is a place where shopping is fun...
The human cost of bringing poultry to the table
Posted on November 26, 2008Last week, North Carolina's Occupational Safety and Health division levied 49 citations and $178,000 in fines for workplace hazards on the House of Raeford Farms, one of nation's largest poultry processors. This action was taken in response to serious, repeat safety violations, many involving hazardous chemicals that pose a threat to the safety of both the plant workers and the...
Ohio: Severed Joint and Several?
Posted on November 24, 2008There are a number of ways to purchase workers comp insurance: most companies secure stand-alone policies. Under experience rating, if the company has losses, their costs go up; if they have lower than average losses, they benefit from reduced premiums...
Cavalcade of Risk, health care reform, bankrupt insurers, guns at work and more
Posted on November 20, 2008Joe Paduda is hosting the post-election edition of Cavalcade of Risk. Dedicated blogger that he is, his post comes to us from Las Vegas, where he offers observations from the floor of the National Workers Comp and Disability Conference. Joe has been a roving workers comp reporter lately...
The Nocebo Effect: Reading Drug Labels Can Make You Sick
Posted on November 18, 2008There is a fascinating article in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that raises interesting implications for workers compensation. Melinda Beck writes that warning labels on medications can actually stimulate symptoms, especially when stress is involved...
Florida lawyers win, employers lose
Posted on November 17, 2008Florida employers have seen about a 60% rate decrease since the 2003 workers compensation reform but it looks like all that is about to change. NCCI has just filed for an 8.9% Florida rate increase in the wake of a recent Florida Supreme Court ruling...
Triathlete Trains on the Public Dime
Posted on November 14, 2008There must be something in the smoke: a few months ago we blogged the tale of Albert Arroyo, a Boston firefighter who participated in a body building contest while collecting workers comp for an alleged disability. Well, to demonstrate that we harbor neither geographic nor gender prejudices, we tell the tale of Christina Hijjawi, a 37 year-old firefighter from San...
Health Wonk Review's post election edition
Posted on November 13, 2008Louise has posted "The Election Is Over" edition of Health Wonk Review at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. Now that voters have made their choices and the dust is settling, many wonkers are opining about how health care reform is likely to take shape...
Arkansas: Frozen embryos and Workers Comp
Posted on November 11, 2008Here are two items you might never expect to appear together: frozen embryos and workers comp. But a case in Arkansas reveals that the comp system can easily be drawn into the ongoing (and apparently endless) debate of when life begins. Wade and Amy Finley were married in 1990...
Insurance in the storm: buyers can expect the onset of a hard market
Posted on November 10, 2008Because AIG has been at the epicenter of the economic earthquake, many non-industry observers point to insurance as one of the villains and the industry is getting a black eye that may not be warranted. AIG's problems did not surface in its insurance operations, which remained sound, but with their dubious investment portfolio which rocked the entire organization...
Cavalcade of Risk and a few news notes
Posted on November 06, 2008Cavalcade of Risk #64 is posted and awaiting your perusal at SuperSaver. OSHA - three new safety bulletins are available from OSHA: Compactor Rollover Hazard Hazards of Transporting, Unloading, Storing and Handling Granite,Marble and Stone Slabs Hazards of Using Flammable Liquids in Cutting Laminated Glass Violence at work not always compensable - Roberto Ceniceros of Business Insurance reports on an...
Oregon's state rankings for workers? compensation premium rates
Posted on November 04, 2008If you are an employer with operations in multiple states or if you are just plain curious about how your state's workers' comp costs stack up to other states, we have just the tool for you. The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services has just released its biennial report on state rankings for workers' compensation premium rates (PDF)...
Hot off the presses: Health Wonk Review
Posted on October 30, 2008David Harlow of HealthBlawg has posted the Samhain edition of Health Wonk Review. If you are like me and don't know what Samhain refers to, go and get yourself educumated - it's interesting! As are all the entries in this last-call edition for health policy posts before the upcoming election...
Health & Safety resource roundup
Posted on October 29, 2008Cleaning out our bookmark files, we came upon an assortment of health and safety resources that we thought we'd pass along. You may face some unusual hazards on your job, but it is unlikely you face anything like this - yikes. We've mentioned the Naval Safety Center's Photos of the Week - well worth checking out if you haven't...
Disability Insurer Oversight: Just Ducky?
Posted on October 28, 2008Last month we blogged the emerging scandal involving the Long Island Railroad, where over 90 percent of employees (management included) retire on disability. Walt Bodanich and Duff Wilson of the New York Times have a follow up article that goes into some of the deails...
Attorney Fees in Florida: What is "Reasonable"?
Posted on October 27, 2008Emma Murray was a certified nursing assistant for Mariner Health Care in Florida. While helping to lift a patient, she suffered a uterine prolapse, which required a hysterectomy. She filed for workers comp, but her claim was denied because the carrier determined that the condition was not work related...
Down the Rabbit Hole: The Economic Crisis and Workers Comp
Posted on October 23, 2008We are all struggling to keep our bearings in a world where the conventional compass is spinning madly. The economic crisis has sent the stock market plummeting and has impacted every aspect of our lives. We wake up with the same thoughts that Alice had, following her fall down the rabbit hole: I wonder if I've been changed in the...
Cavalcade of Risk, plumbers, illegal immigrants, cranes, contractors, and more
Posted on October 22, 2008Cavalcade of Risk #63:The WABAC edition hosted by John Cogan at Regulating Health Insurance. John is the Executive Counsel-Executive Assistant for Policy and Program Review for the Rhode Island Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner. He's a first time host of Cavalcade so you might kick the tires at his blog after catching up on the news...
Make way for the cyborgs: robotic mobility devices
Posted on October 20, 2008We are totally fascinated with some of the assistive technologies that hold promise for the disabled to regain powers of mobility. We've previously discussed exciting developments in high tech wheelchairs and in July, we posted about a truly exciting development: an exoskeleton device from Israel called ReWalk, a light, wearable brace that holds promise for helping those paralyzed by...
Pre-election Health Wonk Review is posted
Posted on October 16, 2008Things are heating up with the election just a few short weeks away. You can read about the pre-election health policy debate over at Joe's place. Now if you saw last night's debate, you might be thinking "Joe the Plumber," but no, this is Joe the health policy wonk at Managed Care Matters...
New Jersey: The Fix is In
Posted on October 15, 2008Back in April, we blogged the troubled status of workers comp in New Jersey, a patronage-ridden system that failed to provide timely benefits to many injured workers. The system suffered from a decades-long inertia: yes, there were problems for injured workers, but employers benefitted from relatively low rates...
Texting can be lethal
Posted on October 14, 2008With the recent focus on the economic meltdown and the pending election, you might have missed the story about the likely cause of the horrific California train crash that killed 25 people last month and injured 135 others. Almost immediately, authorities knew that the accident was the result of human error - the driver had failed to stop at a...
Cavalcade of Risk and other news
Posted on October 09, 2008Check out Cavalcade of Risk #62 at Wenchypoo - the Wall Street Wipeout Edition! The financial crisis and workers comp - According to a recent broker survey by Advisen, more than 75% of the respondents were confident or very confident about AIG's financial security...
The AIG Saga: Joe Cassano's Performance-Based Compensation
Posted on October 08, 2008One of the many fascinating sidebars in the decline and fall of the AIG empire is the saga of Joe Cassano. He was the genius behind AIG's Financial Products Unit, which insured high risk sub-prime mortgage deals. In other words, he is the man most responsible for AIG's abrupt demise...
Safety@Work Creative Awards 2008
Posted on October 07, 2008Creative work safety contests are somewhat rare but they can be a great way to get kids and young people thinking about workplace safety early. We were happy to see that this year's winners in the Safety@Work Creative Awards for digital animation and poster design were recently announced...
Lollypops for Pain
Posted on October 06, 2008We have been following the market trajectory of Actiq, the lollypop for pain manufactured by Cephalon. Actiq contains fentanyl, a highly addictive substance about 80 times more potent than morphine. It provides relief within 15 minutes. The drug, intended for breakthrough cancer pain, costs about $2,400 for a month's supply...
Health Wonk Review - hot off the presses
Posted on October 02, 2008Jason Shafrin at Healthcare Economist offers 700 million reasons to read Health Wonk Review this week. From Wall Street to the election, health care policy issues grow more and more interesting - and imperative. Health Wonk Review offers analysis from some of the industry's smartest thinkers and policy wonks, culling out some of the choicest bits from the last two...
Eight steps to controlling workers' compensation costs in your company - part 3
Posted on October 01, 2008This is part 3 in a 3-part series. Click here for part 1 and part 2. Step 6 ? Establish a partnership with your claim service provider The role of the insurer or third party administrator (TPA) is not to solve your workers? compensation problem. That is something you do together...
Eight steps to controlling workers' compensation costs in your company - part 2
Posted on September 30, 2008This is part 2 in a 3-part series. For part 1, click here. Step 3 ? Develop an injury action plan Many employers think that when an injury occurs responsibility for getting the injured worker back to work shifts to the claim adjuster. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is this basic misunderstanding that causes many claims...
Eight steps to controlling workers' compensation costs in your company
Posted on September 29, 2008Many companies have recognized a basic truth about workers' compensation: that the worksite is the best place to control losses, and that they, as employers, have the maximum leverage to lower losses. These employers no longer try to hand the problem off to their legislators, their insurers or their attorneys; instead, they manage workers' compensation as a controllable expense...
Cavalcade of Risk and other news items
Posted on September 25, 2008A new edition of Cavalcade of Risk is posted at American Consumer News, and as you might expect, quite a few bloggers weigh in on Wall Street-related matters. Also related to the financial goings-on: Business Insurance features a special section on AIG in Crisis with daily news coverage updates and other features...
Catastrophic claims and RTW
Posted on September 23, 2008Milliman, Inc has just released a study that shows that Paradigm Management Services has remarkable rates of return to work for catastrophic and complex claims when compared to a benchmark database of 60,000 similar claims. Paradigm was five times more successful in getting patients released to return to work, 5 time better in getting patients returned to work, and 13...
Working on the Railroad?
Posted on September 22, 2008The Long Island Railroad has an excellent safety record. They move millions of commuters safely to their destinations every year. You might assume, therefore, that railroad workers are relatively free from disabling workplace injuries. Well, yes and no...
Health Wonk Review: Political Convention Style
Posted on September 18, 2008Jaan Sidorov's posted the Health Wonk Review, Political Convention Style at his Disease Management Care Blog, and it's a good one. We have three more HWR's before the election, and I think they will be a very good source of info on the candidate's health plans...
Comp Fraud Meets Moose
Posted on September 17, 2008I am pleased to report that workers comp has entered into the informed debate that characterizes our pending national election. It is inspiring to see the national dialogue confront - one by one - the complex issues that face this country as we creep on all fours through the new millenium...
AIG: Farewell, My (Not-So) Lovely?
Posted on September 16, 2008The collapse of AIG over the course of just a few days may be astonishing, but in some respects, it is not surprising. A few years ago, AIG stock sold for $100. Today, it's listed at $1.54. AIG is all about risk: much of it reasonable, but a significant portion of it fatally flawed...
Cavalcade of Risk #60
Posted on September 10, 2008Life is full of risk. Even the seemingly innocuous pursuit of blogging is not without its risks. The other day, I found out that some unscrupulous blogger is reposting much of our content under their own name. We are not alone. Stealing blog content is getting to be a big business...
Workers Comp Insider: 5 years and counting!
Posted on September 09, 2008Yay us! This month is our 5th year blogging anniversary so we were pleased to be named to Lexus-Nexus Top 25 Blogs for Workers Compensation -- and to see a few of our esteemed colleagues on the list, too. We have to laugh because when we started, we weren't sure we would find enough to post about to make it...
Florida: Punishing Profitable Carriers
Posted on September 08, 2008When it comes to insurance, Florida is the land of Oz. You might think you know what risk transfer is, or how insurance companies operate, but the rules change as soon as you enter the Sunshine State. We already described Florida's strange approach to property coverage, where the state has pretty much self-insured for the inevitable catatrophe (which may be...
Health Wonk Review and other bloggy news notes
Posted on September 04, 2008Hank Stern has posted a fresh roundup of news from the health wonkosphere over at InsureBlog - check it out: Health Wonk Review: Early September Edition. ADA update - The folks at George's Employment Blog has been keeping an eye on changes to the ADA...
Grappling with the Independent Contractor Problem
Posted on September 03, 2008I'm feeling Vince McMahon's pain. It's as if someone picked me up, body slammed me and then whacked me with a folding chair. Talk about ingratitude! Three wrestlers affiliated with McMahon's colorful World Wrestling Enterprises (WWE) are suing the muscled entrepreneur...
Risky Friday
Posted on August 29, 2008Insider readers contemplating a Labor Day weekend retreat are probably performing the doomed calculus of traffic risk assessment: should I leave early, should I use contrarian logic and head into the middle of the maelstrom, or should I leave late? Given the price of gas, maybe I should just bag it and stay home...
Taking the cookie-cutter to workers' comp medical networks - Why that doesn't work
Posted on August 28, 2008Yesterday, at Managed Care Matters, our good friend Joe Paduda published an excellent "how-to primer" for starting a workers' compensation medical network. Essentially, Joe's advice for would-be network creators is: Bring the right physicians into the network - board-certified occupational health specialists, for example, as well as primary care and specialist physicians who understand workers' compensation;Exclude physicians who don?t know...
Quo Vadis Alabama?
Posted on August 25, 2008It was only a matter of time before the perfect storm hit state employee healthcare. It happened this week, on August 20, in, of all places, Alabama. By 2011, Alabama employees who are obese, hypertensive, or have high cholesterol or high blood glucose will have to pay $25 more each month for their state health insurance...
Health Wonk Review: the beach blogging edition
Posted on August 21, 2008This year, Americans are leaving 460 million vacation days on the table - and based on the volume of submissions to this week's Health Wonk Review, I am estimating that health policy wonks make up about 10 percent of that total since they are obviously hard at work...
News & tools: NY, NH, risk wiki, domestic violence, safety resources, prescription privacy
Posted on August 20, 2008New York Trusts In the latest development in the continuing saga of the New York trust fund, Liberty Mutual is now suing New York, contending that new provisions in the workers comp law unfairly target insurers. It protests that having to make lump sum deposits to the state's Aggregate Trust Fund for permanent partial disability claims - a new wrinkle...
Who said insurance isn't fun? Dispelling myths about the humorless actuary, part 3
Posted on August 18, 2008OK, we ended last week on a bit of a light note and we are going to start this week off in a similar vein. After all, if you are reading this, you are one of about one hundred twenty people who is not on vacation this week. We chanced upon this video clip of an actuarial type (Gene from...
Cavalcade of Risk
Posted on August 14, 2008Joe Paduda is hosting Cavalcade of Risk this week - a sampling from some of the best risk blogs. Check it out over at Managed Care Matters. And from the lighter side, a video clip recap of a startling new study: Most children strongly opposed to children's healthcare...
Heart attacks, vehicle accidents leading cause of firefighter deaths in 2007
Posted on August 13, 2008In a recently issued study entitled On-Duty Firefighter Fatalities in the United States in 2007 (3.0 mb PDF), the United States Fire Administration (USFA) reported that there were 115 on-duty firefighter fatalities in the United States in 2007. This was an 11% increase from the 106 fatalities in 2006...
Nevada Supreme Court rules suicide compensable
Posted on August 11, 2008Is a suicide compensable? In certain circumstances it is, according to a recent ruling by the Nevada Supreme Court in Sharon Vredenburg v. Sedgwick CMA and Flamingo Hilton-Laughlin. While Nevada state law prohibits benefits if a worker?s death occurs due to a "willful intention to injure himself," this does not apply if a "sufficient chain of causation is established...
Health Wonk Review and other news notes
Posted on August 07, 2008Do MDs make good business people? Should more hospital CEOs be physicians? Should there be licensing requirements for hospital executives? Read about these and other health policy questions in this week's edition of Health Wonk Review. Bob Laszewski of Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review is this week's host...
Accommodation for Lawyers
Posted on August 06, 2008Lawyers wrote the Americans with Disabilities Act, so it's no surprise that would-be lawyers constantly try to raise the bar on accommodations within the legal profession. Case in point, Shannon Kelly, a 2003 graduate of Barry University School of Law in Orlando, Florida...
Three new state laws limit employer restrictions on guns at work
Posted on August 04, 2008This summer, risk managers in Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana have a new concern to add to their checklist of health, safety and prevention issues: guns at work. These three states have recently enacted legislation that will allow employees to keep guns in locked cars at the work site...
A Cautionary Tale on Hiring: Finish the Interview!
Posted on July 31, 2008We are all familiar with the recommended procedures for dealing with job applicants. Have a standard list of questions. Ask open-ended questions that invite expansive responses. Be careful - very careful - with any disclosures about medical conditions or prior injuries...
Cavalcade of Risk is awaiting your perusal
Posted on July 30, 2008Richard Eskow of Sentinel Effect hosts this week's Cavalcade of Risk. It's a real smorgasbord, featuring such far-reaching topics as as watermelons, beer, fish, phishing, the housing market, hedge funds and health care. While you're in the neighborhood, check out some of Richard's other posts...
Accident investigation slide shows
Posted on July 29, 2008WorkSafeBC offers a variety of prevention resources which we've featured previously, most recently the videos of teens talking about how they were injured on the job. They offer an excellent library of safety materials - while laws may vary from here in the U...
Real Injuries, Phony Claims
Posted on July 28, 2008When it comes to fraud in workers comp, we usually look to employers, doctors and lawyers. They go after the big bucks. While there are opportunities for ordinary workers to exploit the system, most decline to do it. Today we examine two claims, both involving real injuries and both involving fraud...
Health Wonk Review, help for paraplegics, crane safety, PBM shakeups and more
Posted on July 24, 2008Health Wonk Review - David Williams has a snappy new edition of Health Wonk Review posted over at Health Business Blog. Because HWR took a little summer hiatus last week, this issue is packed - and it's all organized in a great format that allows for quick and easy scanning...
Semi Pro, Semi Screwed: the Saga of Tarrence Rhodes
Posted on July 23, 2008Unless you are an aficionado of marginal sports, you do not follow arena football, which has taken a classic outdoor sport of considerable violence and transposed it to an indoor setting, with little if any reduction in the violence. The main difference between outdoor and indoor football? Money...
Lightning! Safety precautions for work and home
Posted on July 22, 2008This week here in Massachusetts, ten people were struck by lightning when a flash storm suddenly disrupted a soccer game. At this writing, one victim is fighting for his life and four others are in intensive care. Just a few days before and about 80 miles to the northwest, two people in Maine who stepped outside to chase a dog...
Dr. Mahoney's Baloney
Posted on July 21, 2008Last week we blogged the suspicious "total and permanent" disability of Boston firefighter Albert Arroyo, who celebrated his profound disability rating by placing 8th in 2008 Pro Natural Body Building Championship. Yeah, I know, he was just having a good day...
Cavalcade of Risk and a news roundup
Posted on July 17, 2008Michael Cannon is hosting Cavalcade of Risk this week and he's posted a diverse collection of risk-related links at The Cato Institute blog - good end of week reading. Insurance reform - Is insurance due for a regulatory overhaul? The move to an Optional Federal Charter appears to be gathering steam...
New York: Trust not in Trusts
Posted on July 16, 2008We have been following the saga of the busted trusts in New York (here and here). Twelve workers comp trusts, all administered by Compensation Risk Management (CRM), have apparently failed. The workers comp board has decided to hit up the remaining trusts for the shortfall...
Buried alive
Posted on July 15, 2008What could be more horrifying than the idea of being buried alive? It's the stuff of nightmares. novels, and scary movies, tapping into one of our most primal fears. Yet unfortunately, buried alive is not just the stuff of fiction. Every year, it's the same old story - collapsing trenches kill workers at both commercial and residential work sites...
Disability Fraud Closer to Home
Posted on July 14, 2008Last week we blogged the widespread abuse of "disability" pensions for able-bodied members of Zimbabwe's ruling elite. Several cabinet members sported 100% impairment ratings - "quadraplegics" - even as they routinely tootled around the capital in their armored Mercedes and ran up a marbled staircase to greet their esteemed leader, Robert Mugabe...
Disability Ratings with a Heart of Darkness
Posted on July 10, 2008Imagine that you are a doctor participating in a compensation review board for wounded veterans. You are responsible for signing off on pensions that have been recommended by a politically connected doctor. Frequently, the diagnosis is "polyarthritis" and the disability rating is 85%...
Heat stress: rules, reports, and resources
Posted on July 09, 2008Here in the Boston area, we approach another 90+ degree day and the air is thick and muggy, prompting air quality alerts. But that's nothing compared to the heat in California where outdoor workers struggle in 104 degree temperatures, with things are even worse for the firefighters who battle to control rampaging fires...
Of Wage-Earning Capacity and Human Wreckage
Posted on July 08, 2008Ronnie Ramroop was an employee of Flexo-Craft Printing in New York. In March of 1995 he caught his hand in a press, crushing four fingers. After seven surgeries, two fingers were amputated. It goes without saying that this is a work-related injury; workers compensation paid the medical bills, loss of function benefits (Ronnie lost 75% of the use of his...
Cavalcade of Risk; WC and hospital profits; poultry industry expose
Posted on July 02, 2008It's Cavalcade of Risk day, and Louise Norris has an Independence day edition posted at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. Louise and her husband Jay have an interesting story about how they came to the field of health insurance: literally, through the school of hard knocks after intersecting with the health care industry through personal experience, a series of sports-related injuries...
ADA: The Fix is Fixed
Posted on July 01, 2008Back in February we blogged a rather drastic proposal to "restore" the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by expanding eligibility to just about anyone. We feared that blurring the lines between transient conditions and impairments that "substantially limit" major life activities would paralyze American business, clog the courts with trivial cases and divert attention away from the truly disabled, who...
Teddy Awards: A Pat on the Back for Comp Management
Posted on June 30, 2008Risk & Insurance Magazine has announced the 2008 competition for the Teddy Awards, given to organizations demonstrating a long-term commitment to improving workers compensation performance. Creativity and teamwork are major considerations. Four awards will be given: one for a company; one for a nonprofit or government entity; a third award will honor a federal government entity (that will be interesting!)...
Health Wonk Review and news roundup
Posted on June 26, 2008Health Wonk Review - Jaan Sidorov has posted a well-written and very interesting issue of Health Wonk Review at Disease Management Care Blog. Jaan has been a frequent contributor to HWR of late but this is his first time hosting - so when you stop by, be sure to check out his blog, which is billed as "An ongoing forum...
9/11 Rescuers: Fools Rush In...?
Posted on June 25, 2008Anthony DePalma has an interesting analysis of the 10,000 claims against New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. The city has reviewed the claims submitted by people involved in the immediate aftermath and clean up. As many as 30 percent of the claimants are suffering from nothing more than a runny nose or cough...
Injured and Illegal...in South Korea
Posted on June 24, 2008We sometimes forget that the USA is not the only country with an undocumented worker problem. Anywhere you find developed countries with lots of (relatively high paying) jobs, you will find people willing to do anything to get them. Which leads us to an article in Korea Times by Park Si-soo...
Google throws its hat into the electronic medical records arena
Posted on June 23, 2008Search behemoth Google is making its initial foray into the electronic medical records (EMR) business with the recent launch of Google Health. (Also see the FAQs). This service goes toe-to-toe with Microsoft's Health Vault in the race to become the web's dominant player...
Brendan Doyle: Return-to-Work Person of the Year
Posted on June 20, 2008You probably have never heard of Brendan Doyle, a Rhode Island state trooper, but his story, as told by Amanda Milkovits in the Providence Journal, belongs in the hearts and minds of anyone involved in disability management. He exemplifies what great medicine, combined with ferocious determination and discipline, can accomplish...
Looking for Fraud...In the Mirror
Posted on June 19, 2008Imagine you are an attorney in Massachusetts looking for a little work. The Office of Labor and Workforce Development (OLWD), a state agency, hires you and 10 other attorneys to examine applications for unemployment insurance. Normally, this work would be performed by state employees, but the combination of cost-efficiency lay offs and a bad economy has caused a surge in...
Cavalcade of Risk and news roundup: NH, WV, residual market, WC cost drivers & more
Posted on June 18, 2008Weekly carnival - A lively edition of Cavalcade of Risk has been posted by Jim at Bargaineering. NH targeting misclassified employees - New Hampshire employers take note: The departments of labor, employment security, insurance and revenue are teaming up to ferret out employers who misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying workers compensation and unemployment insurance...
New York Trusts, Revisited: Comp Board Channels Willie Sutton
Posted on June 17, 2008Yesterday we blogged the New York Workers Comp Board's unusual solution to a cash flow problem: when a dozen trust funds collapsed, the Board decided to hit up the remaining, solvent funds with an assessment: they raised assessments from the routine total of $500,000 to a staggering $12 million...
Risky Risk Management in New York
Posted on June 16, 2008Compensation Risk Management (CRM) is a third party administrator for eight workers comp trusts in New York. These trusts offer comp coverage to affinity groups in the areas of health care, wholesale/retail and transportation. As we read in the New York Times in an article by Steven Greenhouse, there is good news and bad news about CRM: the good news...
Health Wonk Review, scaffold survivor update, hand protection, and potential cancer cluster
Posted on June 13, 2008Jane Hiebert White has posted a great edition of Health Wonk Review: Washington Week at Health Affairs - and she notes that this issue coincides with Academy Health's Annual Research Meeting held in DC this past week, a gathering based on the concept that health policy should be informed by research...
Footnote on a Fatality
Posted on June 12, 2008Yesterday we blogged the death of Lauro Ortega, who was crushed while excavating a building site in New York. We assumed that he was protected by workers comp, even as his lawyer pursued more lucrative remedies from the (recently indicted) employer, William Lattarulo...
Employers as Criminals
Posted on June 11, 2008William Lattarulo owns several buildings and vacant lots in Brooklyn NY. Back in March, his workers were digging a foundation for a commercial laundry at 791 Glenmore Ave, when a more experienced contractor warned Lattarulo of an immediate hazard: the excavation had reached a level below the foundation of the adjacent building...
Driving and flash floods
Posted on June 10, 2008Flash flooding (video) in the central states over the last few days has resulted in numerous deaths. With "ordinary" flooding, there is a build up over time from rain or melting snow as rivers and bodies of water overflow their banks. Weather authorities and media have time to issue public alerts...
There Goes the Judge
Posted on June 09, 2008Back in November we blogged the saga of Judge Robert Restaino, a City Court judge in Niagra Falls NY. He apparently was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day on March 11, 2005, when a cell phone went off in his courtroom, in violation of his judicial protocols...
A Tree Falls in Rhode Island
Posted on June 06, 2008We have been following the case of Edgar Valasquez, the undocumented worker who was seriously injured by a chain saw in 2006. (Our two prior blogs are here and here.) His employer, Billy G's Tree Service, failed to carry workers comp insurance. When Edgar showed up at the courthouse for his comp hearing, federal agents (apparently tipped off by Billy...
News roundup: Cavalcade of Risk, disease mongering, claims adjusting, crane safety, and more
Posted on June 05, 2008Congratulations to Hank Stern of InsureBlog on the the second anniversary of Cavalcade of Risk - check out some of the best of the web's risk management posts from the last few weeks. Kudos to Hank for keeping this biweekly "best of" carnival going - it's a great way to be introduced to new blogs...
Setting Limits in California
Posted on June 04, 2008California had a long-standing reputation as a workers compensation nightmare: not because injured employees received generous benefits - they did not - but because doctors and lawyers exploited the system to generate enormous fees. Governor Schwarzenegger, AKA the Terminator, put an end to that with his extensive 2003-04 reforms...
Firefighters revisited: Presumption's Slippery Slope
Posted on June 03, 2008In yesterday's blog, my colleague Julie Ferguson discussed the issue of compensible illness for firefighters. Forty states already have statutes giving the benefit of the doubt to firefighters: if they become ill from many forms of cancer or heart disease, the illness is presumed to be work related...
Firefighters and presumptive disability statutes
Posted on June 02, 2008Sally Roberts has written a good article on firefighters and state workers comp laws in the recent edition of Business Insurance. Regardless of profession, illnesses have traditionally posed more of a compensability challenge than an out-and-out injury...
Health Wonk Review is Up
Posted on May 29, 2008Hank Stern has posted the latest edition of Health Wonk Review. Essential for wonks, a nice option for the rest of us. Check it out here....
Docs Give Grading System a Failing Grade
Posted on May 28, 2008The Group Insurance Commission (GIC) in Massachusetts came up with a nifty idea: let's grade physicians based upon efficiency and competence; we'll reward those with high marks and penalize those who are (relative) failures. (The GIC administers health plans for public sector employees...
Lost Youth: the stories of four teens injured at work
Posted on May 27, 2008In a few weeks, millions of teens will be joining the work force, many for the first time. For most, nothing out of the ordinary will occur, but for about 70, their jobs will be lethal. About every three minutes, a teen is injured on the job. Worksafe BC has compiled the true stories of four ordinary kids whose first...
DWT = DOA
Posted on May 23, 2008vlingo is a Cambridge MA firm specializing in voice recognition software. They have completed a study of driving habits, specifically, the prevalence of driving while texting (DWT) across the US. The results, in the context of the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, are nothing less than terrifying...
Cavalcade of Risk is Up
Posted on May 22, 2008What do Bank of America, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley have in common? If you said they all have lost billions in absurdly risky loans, you would be right, but that's not the answer we are looking for. We learn in the latest edition of Cavalcade of Risk, ably hosted by Jason Shafrin of Healthcare Economist,...
The Rhode Island Solution
Posted on May 21, 2008Rhode Island may be small, but when it comes to tackling the problem of undocumented workers, they think big. Last month, Governor Donald Carcieri issued an executive order encouraging law enforcement officials - from state police to local cops - to determine the immigration status of anyone taken into custody and take immediate steps to deport those who are here...
Noteworthy blogs and tools
Posted on May 20, 2008Time for a blogroll and sidebar update! We're always looking for new resources to keep things fresh - we've been told we have the best compilation of workers' comp link resources on the web - we hope it's useful to you. Noteworthy blogs The Safety Blog - this blog is sponsored by Safety Services Company...
Meatpacking in Iowa: Not Exactly Kosher?
Posted on May 19, 2008Postville Iowa is a one traffic light town with a population of 2,300 people. Last Monday, as we read in the Washington Post, 17 percent of the town's residents were arrested in a raid coordinated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All were employees of AgriProcessors, the nation's largest producer of kosher meats...
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Not in This Army!
Posted on May 16, 2008Norma Perez is a psychologist who leads the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) program at a medical facility for veterans in Temple, Texas. As we read in the Washington Post, she is pretty busy with claims. Given that veterans with a PTSD diagnosis are eligible for up to $2,527 a month in disability benefits, she came up with a great way...
Health Wonk Review, NCCI, networks, Missouri, and more
Posted on May 15, 2008Jason Shafrin of Healthcare Economist hosts this week's edition of Health Wonk Review in newspaper style - it's lean and clean, and packed with interesting pointers to the latest news. NCCI conference - Peter Rousmaniere attended the annual NCCI Conference this year and reports back on his findings, posted at Joe's place...
Workers compensation and recessions
Posted on May 14, 2008Are we in or headed to a recession? Each of us might have our own opinions based on the industry we work in, the number of times we have to fill our gas tank during the week, and the area of the country where we live. According to the economic cognoscenti, the jury is still out - some industry insiders...
FedEx Sued by Shareholders
Posted on May 13, 2008As if Fed Ex did not have enough problems, the company with the unusual staffing model is now being sued by some shareholders. Given that the suit has been filed by Local 51 of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Pension Fund, it's no surprise to find that the suit attacks the business model of hiring "independent contractors" to carry out the...
Workers Comp and Wellness: Partners at a Distance
Posted on May 12, 2008Bill Thorness has written an interesting article for NCCI on the relationship of wellness programs to workers comp costs. In some respects, it involves a "duh" thesis: wellness programs can significantly lower comp costs, because healthy workers are less prone to injury and, once injured, recover more quickly than their out-of-shape co-workers...
Cavalcade of Risk; kudos; perverse incentives; legal nooks and crannies
Posted on May 08, 2008Cavalcade of Risk is being hosted by Spencer Hill at Hill's Personal Finance Blog. He's got a good roundup of posts on a variety or risk-related matters from business to personal exposures - check it out! Kudos - Congratulations to Michale Fitzgibbon for his five year "blogiversary" at Thoughts From a Management Lawyer, a blawg (or law blog) that offers...
Eye safety and eye health on the job
Posted on May 06, 2008If today is an average day, more than 2,000 people will have an eye injury at work. And tomorrow, the risk is even greater because the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says that more eye injuries occur on Wednesdays than any other day of the week. While many eye injuries will be relatively minor, about 5 percent will be debilitating...
Abusive Behavior as a Disability?
Posted on May 05, 2008Rosemary Verga worked for United Airlines as a staff representative in human resources. This seems an odd choice for a woman described by co-workers as "a difficult person to get along with" - "impolite, unpleasant" and quick to explode. In addition to being rude, inflexible, easily upset and demeaning toward others...
Waterboarding for Sales
Posted on May 02, 2008Joshua Christopherson is a supervisor of sales for Prosper, Inc., a Utah company that peddles on-line training and motivation courses. The courses range in price from $3,000 to $15,000. By most accounts Christopherson is a decent enough guy, albeit a bit obsessed with the performance of his sales team...
Health Wonk Review, RIMS, emergency responders, mysterious pork worker illness
Posted on May 01, 2008Daniel Goldberg has posted an excellent new edition of Health Wonk Review at his Medical Humanities Blog. This week's roundup from the brainiacs of health wonkery encompasses everything from the usual health policy debates to alcopops, including a handful of posts on legal matters and new legislation...
Disrimination in the UK: The (Bald) Facts
Posted on April 29, 2008James Campbell taught art classes at Denny High School in Stirlingshire, Scotland. He filed a discrimination claim under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), the UK's equivalent of our ADA. His disability? Baldness. He claimed that he had suffered from harassment at the hands of pupils because of his lack of hair...
Worker Memorial Day 2008
Posted on April 28, 2008Today is Workers Memorial Day, a day that is dedicated to recognizing workers who have been killed or injured on the job. It was started by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in 1984 and began here in the U.S. in 1989. Today, it is marked by workers across the globe...
Why Wait? New Brunswick Debates the Waiting Period
Posted on April 25, 2008A labor group in our neighbor to the North, New Brunswick, Canada, is seeking an end to the three day waiting period for workers comp benefits. "We really believe it is unfair," said Michel Boudreau, president of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour...
Cavalcade of Risk #50
Posted on April 23, 2008We're honored to be hosting this 50th edition of Cavalcade of Risk, a smörgåsbord of some of the best posts from blogs that focus on the realm of risk. We have a hefty helping of posts so we'll dispense with further formalities and just dig right in. Health Care Which countries have the best health care systems? That's a question...
Workers Comp: An Obligation to Get Better?
Posted on April 22, 2008In conventional medicine, people are generally free to choose their care, up to the limits of their coverage. They can opt for certain procedures or decide to forego them. For the most part, adults are independent players in the medical system, acting in accord with their own wishes...
Contractors vs employees: KBR and Blackwater shell games
Posted on April 21, 2008A reader sent us a story from the Boston Globe that we previously missed about contractors who are suing KBR for toxic exposures to sodium dichromate in Iraq. Nine Americans are suing the erstwhile Halliburton subsidiary for " ...knowingly exposing them to the deadly substance and failing to provide them with the protective equipment needed to keep them safe...
The 41-hour smoke break and other elevator stories
Posted on April 18, 2008While working late one Friday night to meet a publication deadline, Nicholas White decided to take a smoke break. It lasted 41 hours. White worked on the 43rd floor of the McGraw Hill Building in downtown Manhattan. His descent in the elevator on his way to the smoke break was uneventful, but on the trip back up, the elevator got...
Health Wonk Review is posted at Health Beat
Posted on April 17, 2008Maggie Mahar and Niko Karvounis have posted a fine new edition of Health Wonk Review at Health Beat. They've done superlative work in summarizing and commenting on each post, making it a very good read indeed. While visiting Health Beat, be sure to check out some of Maggie's other posts - in the sidebar, there's a collection of links to...
"Tracks of My Tiers": Health Care Rationing Comes to America
Posted on April 16, 2008Gina Kolata writes in the New York Times that health insurance companies are adopting a new pricing system for some of the most expensive drugs, pushing more of the cost onto consumers. It goes by the innocent sounding name of "Tier 4." It might as well be called "bankruptcy for the seriously ill...
News Roundup: trouble in FL; medical apartheid; exclusive remedy in NJ; regulators caving, and more
Posted on April 14, 2008Trouble brewing in Florida - Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters is looking at a proposed regulation in Florida for hospital reimbursement and he is not liking what he sees. He says its a situation that is likely to "scare the pants off you." Medical apartheid - Richard Eskow of Sentinel Effect posts about recent studies by the Robert Wood...
Kneading the Dough
Posted on April 11, 2008The Arthur Avenue Bakery in the Bronx NY is famous for its cannoli and crusty bread. The bread is not the only crusty item at the bakery. We read in the NY Times that the 50 year old institution is suddenly famous for unfair labor practices: some employees worked 12 hour days for $50 a day - an hourly rate...
Are bloggers the new occupational risk group?
Posted on April 09, 2008If you have bloggers on the payroll, both you and they may be at risk for work injuries - or even death! At least that's the word according to a recent article by Matt Richtel in the New York Times, In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop...
New Jersey Comp: A Safety Net with Big Holes
Posted on April 08, 2008New Jersey is known for many things, including these odd tidbits: three consecutive governors broke their legs while in office (Whitman, McGreevey, Corzine); no self-serve gas; no state song; the lowest rate of depression in the US. And an idiosyncratic workers comp system that has not been changed significantly since the 1970s...
Privatizing in Nassau County: A Good Idea, But...
Posted on April 07, 2008Nassau County in New York is currently paying about $10 million a year for the partial disability claims of former county employees. They would like to settle these claims, but as with most municipalities, their budget process offers no opportunity for fronting the costs of settlement...
An Apology from Walmart
Posted on April 04, 2008Back in November, just before Thanksgiving, we blogged the story of Deborah Shank, a 52 year old woman who stocked shelves in Wal-Mart's Cape Girardieu, Missouri store. Here's how we described the situation: Seven years ago, [Deborah] was perusing yard sales with a friend when a tractor trailer plowed into her van...
Health Wonk Review is posted; plus, weekly news roundup
Posted on April 03, 2008An excellent new edition of Health Wonk Review is awaiting your perusal at The Health Care Blog. The post is authored by Brian Klepper, a nationally recognized health care analyst and consultant and a roving blogger who regularly posts at Matthew Holt?s The Health Care Blog, Patricia Salber MD?s The Doctor Weighs In (where he is the sole non-physician contributor),...
The Best Health Care in the World: Part Five: A recap, a few questions, a conclusion and a modest proposal
Posted on March 31, 2008This series is meant to paint a realistic, well-sourced and objective portrait of American health care early in the 21st century as compared with that of our 29 partners in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, all of us comprising the most developed democracies in the world), and to examine how workers' compensation fits into that mix...
Fodder for a Friday: Injured Workers and Injured Soldiers
Posted on March 28, 2008There's a brouha brewing in England, where a civilian employee of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) has been awarded 202,000 pounds for straining his back while picking up a printer. In this country, $350K+ awards are not all that unusual for (serious) back injuries, but the British tabloid press has jumped all over this story, comparing the generous benefits to...
Calvalcade of Risk is Up
Posted on March 27, 2008Ernesto the Insurance Geek is hosting this week's Cavalcade of Risk at InsuranceYak.com. He has sifted through a whopping 18 submissions, thereby providing easy access to anyone with an interest in risk - and that is just about all of us. Check it out...
How not to commit fraud
Posted on March 25, 2008If you are a corrections officer on leave for a workers compensation injury, you should probably avoid getting dressed up in drag and competing in a public 40-yard dash, running in high heels. Nor should you work two other jobs while collecting workers comp benefits due to your inability to work...
Health Wonk Review and news roundup
Posted on March 20, 2008Fresh wonkery - A fresh new edition of Health Wonk Review - the "fearless leader" edition - is hot of the presses at Joe Paduda's blog, Managed Care Matters. As the original mastermind behind HWR, Joe has more than earned that nickname. This week's edition focuses on reform - a continuing theme this year - as well as pharma &...
The Best Health Care in the World - Part Four: Do the Statistics Tell the Whole Truth?
Posted on March 19, 2008We have seen that America spends more on health care than other developed democracies around the world for outcomes that, on the whole, are no better than those achieved by the average OECD country. Our health care "system" perpetuates ever-increasing spending without delivering results to justify the expense...
The Best Health Care in the World ? Part Three: What Do We Get for the Money?
Posted on March 17, 2008In Part One of this series, we began looking at some of the many cost disparities between group health and workers' compensation. In Part Two, we compared US health care costs with costs in the other 29 member-countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)...
RTW resources from Australia
Posted on March 14, 2008The RTW Knowledge Base Website is a free service from Australia providing research based information and links to external resources on work disability prevention. We received a notice about this site from Mary Wyatt, an Occupational Physician based in Melbourne Australia...
The Best Health Care in the World: Part Two ? What does it cost?
Posted on March 13, 2008In 1992 I became a Trustee of a major, tertiary care, teaching hospital in Massachusetts. For Trustee indoctrination, new Trustees spent a week in a classroom learning about every facet of hospital life. One morning we were briefed by the hospital's CFO...
Return to work and disabled vets
Posted on March 12, 2008The Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of war represent the largest deployment of civilian soldiers since WWII. Of the 1.5 million troops that have served, approximately one in every four is a National Guard member or a Reservist. While the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act offers legal job protections, the road back will not be an easy one for...
Cavalcade of Risk
Posted on March 12, 2008A fresh Cavalcade of Risk is posted and awaiting your perusal - it's the 47th edition, and ably hosted by John Cogan at the Regulating Health Insurance blog. John is the Executive Assistant for Policy and Program Review for the Rhode Island Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner and his blog focuses on health insurance, health policy and health law...
The best health care plan in America
Posted on March 11, 2008In 1986, US workers' compensation medical costs were 44% of total incurred loss dollars. Ten years later, the percentage had grown to 48%. By 2006, medical costs amounted to 58% of total loss costs. And today, nearly a third of the way through 2008, they hover around 60%...
News roundup: transportation fatalities, managed care, combustible dust, and common WC mistakes
Posted on March 10, 2008Transportation safety - Celeste Monforton at The Pump Handle talks about when a work-related traffic fatality is not a work-related traffic fatality in her thoughtful post When the Road is Your Workplace. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts on-the-job traffic fatalities in its annual census of fatal occupational injuries - and last year, transportation-related fatalities represent ed 40% of all...
Wonk, Wonk: Health Wonk Review is Here
Posted on March 06, 2008Health Wonkery runs a wide gamut this week: we have big Pharma front and center with cowardly marketing, poison in the pills and a controversial study that finds a racial factor in whether meds are taken properly; we have extremely divergent views on health care reform, from single payer and a big role for government to status quo and no...
Bullshit as Science: A Test for Malingerers
Posted on March 05, 2008Paul Lees-Haley, PhD, is a psychologist who has come up with a 43 question test to separate the truly disabled from malingerers. Lees-Haley is either a genius or a pompous fraud right out of Mark Twain. Read on and decide for yourself. (This posting is based upon an article by David Armstrong in the Wall Street Journal, which limits access...
Farewell to a Management Guru
Posted on March 04, 2008Joe Juran died this week, at the ripe age of 103. You may or may not know him by name, but his remarkable contributions to management are visible in worksites around the globe. In 1937, he coined the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes...
The Most Dangerous Job in Philadephia?
Posted on March 03, 2008If you were to guess which jobs for the city of Philadelphia resulted in the most workers comp claims, you'd probably start with police and fire. These are high risk jobs, for sure, but the losses in these departments pale beside those of the Parking Authority...
Ohio State University (Finally) Discovers Modified Duty
Posted on February 29, 2008We came across an article in the Columbus Dispatch by a reporter with the irresistible name of Encarnacion Pyle. It's about the "novel" use of temporary modified duty at Ohio State University. With its workers' compensation costs nearing $10 million a year, OSU finally discovered the idea that has been circulating among enlightened managers for 20 years or more: "moving...
Cool tools
Posted on February 28, 2008From time to time, we like to share a mixed bag of useful tools ranging from health and safety resources to productivity enhancers. Here are our latest finds: Compliance - State labor legislation enacted in 2007 - the Monthly Labor Review's 29-page PDF offers a summary of major labor changes on a state-by-state basis, including minimum wage, immigration initiatives, child...
White Collar Crimes: Marsh & McClennan, AIG & GenRe
Posted on February 27, 2008A few days ago we blogged insurance crime for amateurs: the saga of Regency Insurance, which was an insurance operation in name only. Today we deal with three big Kahunas: Marsh & McClennan, AIG and GenRe. When it comes to insurance crime, it just doesn't get any bigger than these folks...
When play becomes work, or the case of the traveling employee
Posted on February 26, 2008There are various circumstances in which an injury that occurs during a recreational activity might be compensable. One exception might be if the injury occurs on company premises or at a company-sponsored event, a likelihood that approaches near certainty if participation in the event was mandatory...
S. 2044: Obama weighs in on independent contractors
Posted on February 25, 2008The fact that a U. S. Senator has filed a bill on independent contractors is not a major news item. But the senator is Barack Obama, and the bill, S. 2044, is entitled "Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act." Obama has zeroed in on an issue of abiding interest to the Insider - and to all who deal with employment issues...
Health Wonk Review and other news
Posted on February 21, 2008Health Wonk Review is posted at GoozNews, a first-time host for this health policy compendium. GoozNews is the blog of Merrill Goozner, who was in the news business for 25+ years as a foreign correspondent, economics writer and investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune...
TPAs, PEOs and Sham Insurance
Posted on February 20, 2008Insurance companies handle a lot of cash: a lot of money flows in (insurance premiums); a lot of money flows out (insured losses, administrative expenses, the cost of reinsurance). For legitimate carriers, a good year results when the premium dollars collected exceed total losses combined with total expenses...
PPOs: Size Matters but Quality Rules
Posted on February 19, 2008Our colleague Peter Rousmaniere has a fascinating article on PPOs in the current issue of Risk & Insurance magazine, entitled "Has Competition Vanished?" Coventry has become the 900 pound gorilla of workers comp medical services, with 4,700 hospitals and 580,000 doctors...
Pro Football and Workers Comp: A Violent Collision?
Posted on February 14, 2008Chad Hennings spent nine years as a lineman for the Dallas Cowboys. He accounted for 28 sacks, 6 fumble recoveries, 4 return yards and 1 touchdown in 107 games before retiring after the 2000 season. He also suffered permanent damage to his back. The question is whether or not his work-related back injury is compensable under the Texas workers comp...
Cavalcade of Risk, plus a look at celebrity body parts and the matter of risk
Posted on February 13, 2008Cavalcade of Risk #45 is now posted at I?ve Paid For This Twice Already?, a blog that intriguingly describes itself as being "From financial imprisonment to financial independence, a penny at a time. This is one family?s story." It's a good healthy issue, lots of posts covering a variety or risk-related matters...
ADA Restoration Act: The Fix Needs Fixing
Posted on February 12, 2008The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 attempted, among other things, to eliminate workplace discrimination against people with disabilities. No one can argue with the goal. Over the years, problems have emerged in determining who meets the ADA definition of disabled...
Safety blog coverage of the sugar refinery explosion: frustration with OSHA
Posted on February 11, 2008We sorely miss Jordan Barab's participation in the safety blogosphere - he was a tireless crusader for workplace safety. Whenever a work tragedy occurred, such as last week's Imperial Sugar Refinery explosion that claimed the lives of 6 workers, we could always count on Jordan to offer details and expertise on the matter that couldn't be found elsewhere...
Asymmetry in Workers Comp
Posted on February 08, 2008In conventional medicine, breast implants come in pairs: in most circumstances, you install (or replace) both at the same time. There is a compelling aesthetic symmetry in the process. In the idiosyncratic world of comp, however, symmetry is trumped by the "work-related" standard...
Health Wonk Review and news roundup
Posted on February 07, 2008Health Wonk Review - David Williams of Health Business Blog is the host of this week's edition of Health Wonk Review - he includes a wide variety of posts and his concise briefs on each entry make it an easy issue to skim through. From here to the election, content should be rich as health care policy positions and debates...
West Virginia Transition: Changing Rules, Changing Lives
Posted on February 06, 2008We have been following the cosmic shift in the administration of workers' comp in West Virginia, where a monopolistic state has morphed into a competitive market. The future looks rosy, but there is much pain in the transition. It's one thing to tighten up eligibility requirements and build a new "return-to-work" culture; the problem comes when the new culture clashes...
Connecticut Privatization: Good Idea Gone Bad
Posted on February 05, 2008Workers comp in the public sector is like an iceberg: what is visible from year to year does not really tell you how big the problem is. With the budget funding cycle running fiscal year to fiscal year, there is no incentive to close out open claims. It's actually cheaper - in the short run - to keep paying on...
NY scaffolding: one miracle survivor saved by physics; others not so lucky
Posted on February 04, 2008When cables broke on a scaffold on the 47th floor of a New York high-rise residential building on a crisp December day, it took only about 6 seconds for the two window washers who had been on the platform to plummet 500 feet to the ground. Edgar Moreno was killed instantly but, astonishingly, his brother Alcides Moreno survived the fall...
Tom Brady and the Art of Hiring
Posted on February 01, 2008As the Super Bowl looms over the weekend, our thoughts turn toward the challenge of personnel management. Most of us are periodically involved in hiring decisions: for some, it's a major responsibility, for others, an occasional task. Some applicants come across as a perfect match (and turn into a bust) while others are nervous and unimpressive, yet turn into the...
Cavalcade of Risk #44
Posted on January 30, 2008Silicon Valley Blogger does a superb job hosting this week's Cavalcade of Risk at The Digerati Life. The intro gives a hint of this week's content: The theme of this carnival is risk management. From disruptive physicians, to Indian IPOs and patents, and even baboons, you?ll find quite a diverse set of articles in this carnival that are tied together...
Independent Contractors: New Hampshire Defines, FedEx Whines
Posted on January 29, 2008New Hampshire has come up with their own 12 step program to determine whether contractors are truly independent or just employees. Meanwhile, the IRS has come down hard on FedEx, hitting the company with a $319 million fine for misclassifying drivers as independent contractors...
Weblog roundup: recession and WC; cost of physicians; undocumented workers; and heath & safety
Posted on January 28, 2008Recessions effect on WC - Joe Paduda offers his analysis of what the recession will mean for workers comp. Citing a 2002 Minnesota study, he notes that costs rise during recessions for two reasons: claims rates and disability duration both increase. He notes that other factors may well have a larger impact on costs than the recession...
Poncho Rules: Spanking is not Discriminatory
Posted on January 25, 2008Back in April of 2006 we blogged the strange story of Alarm One, a security company with an odd way of motivating employees: to stimulate sales, they routinely punished low performers by throwing pies at them, feeding them baby food, making them wear diapers and even spanking them in front of their colleagues...
Health Wonk Review and some handy new tools
Posted on January 24, 2008A new edition of Health Wonk Review is being hosted by Vince Kuraitis at e-CareManagement blog, including posts about in-store clinics, physicians, problems and solutions in health systems, and cats, dogs and kangaroos. Suffice it to say that this is the first time kangaroos have surfaced in HWR, and I will leave it to you to discover why...
Shooting Lawyers the Bird: The Tribune's Employee Handbook
Posted on January 23, 2008If it isn't clear by now, the Insider believes in a sense of humor. A few laughs help us get through the working day. So it is with some ambivalence that we tackle the issue of the Tribune Newspaper's new Employee Handbook. Written by a non-lawyer, the handbook attempts to present the myriad issues contained in a handbook in a...
Morbid Obesity and the Essential Job Functions of a Cop
Posted on January 22, 2008When Paul Soto joined the NYPD in 1993, he was 25 years old and weighed 250 pounds. Ten years later, his weight ranged well above 300 pounds. As you might expect, he was having difficulty performing the essential functions of his job. He applied for disability retirement; pending review of his application, he was placed on light duty, which kept...
Heartburn in Tennessee
Posted on January 17, 2008The Tennessee Restaurant Association (TRA), as you might expect, is a lobbying group for restaurants. One of the benefits of membership is access to special insurance programs. Around 500 members participated in a workers comp program run since its 1993 inception by the TRA's charismatic director, Ronnie Hart...
Cavalcade of Risk #43
Posted on January 16, 2008We're pleased to be hosting this week's edition of Cavalcade of Risk. Participants have submitted a wide spectrum of analysis, tips, tricks, and tools to help manage risk, both in the public and the personal arenas. It's a hefty issue, so let's jump right in...
Kentucky: Age and Benefits Collide
Posted on January 15, 2008The Insider continually tracks the impact of an aging workforce. There's no lack of material! Here's an interesting case from the Bluegrass state, where the issues of working past retirement age and the calculation of disability benefits collide. Charles Lickteig was a deputy sheriff in Jefferson County, Kentucky...
Hi-tech wheelchairs improve life for the disabled
Posted on January 14, 2008If you haven't seen some of the recent progress being made in wheelchair technology, you may be in for surprise. This feature from deputydog, a "cool and interesting things" weblog, features photos, video clips and links to various hi-tech wheelchairs...
Health Wonk Review and news roundup
Posted on January 10, 2008Bob Laszewski of Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review has posted the first Health Wonk Review of 2008, and it's a good one because people had to save up their best posts over the last month since we had a short hiatus. Many entries focus on analysis of the presidential candidates' positions on health care, which will be one of...
New Hampshire Backpedals on Contractors
Posted on January 08, 2008Back in December we blogged a legislative remedy that backfired in New Hampshire: House Bill 471 eliminated the exemption for corporate officers and directors from workers comp coverage. Given the state's extremely high costs for comp, this created an immediate outcry...
Surgical Implant/Ethical Bypass: The Story of Dr. Chan
Posted on January 07, 2008The Insider has often speculated about the thought process of medical providers, so we are very interested in case of Dr. Patrick Chan, a neurosurgeon working out of Searcy, Arkansas. The Canadian trained doctor has pleaded guilty to charges of demanding and accepting kickbacks from surgical implant maker Blackstone Medical of Springfield MA, a subsidiary of Orthofix International...
Cavalcade of Risk's first edition of 2008
Posted on January 03, 2008Jonathon Pletzke of Consumer's Health Insurance Book Blog does a fine job hosting this week's back-to-work edition of Cavalcade of Risk - the first edition of the New Year. We'll be hosting the January 16 edition here at Workers' Comp Insider. Also, Health Wonk Review had a brief holiday hiatus but will be returning to its regular schedule a week...
2007 insurance year in review
Posted on January 02, 2008Here at Workers Comp Insider, we're digging out after a holiday hiatus, and getting back into the swing of things with recaps of top insurance news from 2007 as presented by some of the leading insurance publications. While few of the major insurance stories in 2007 were specific to workers compensation, nothing in the insurance world lives in a vacuum...
Santa Claus is a risky guy!
Posted on December 21, 2007There's no two ways about it - Santa is an underwriter's nightmare. He's overweight, he drives too fast, and there is some evidence that he is tipping brandy while he drives. Plus he smokes a pipe and eats too many cookies. Besides all his bad habits, Santa's job is a nightmare, and he faces a lot of unusual health risks...
Cavalcade of Risk
Posted on December 19, 2007Matthew Paulson is hosting the holiday edition of Cavalcade of Risk at American Consumer News. The host blog is an online magazine offering tricks, tips and ideas designed to promote financial freedom. It focuses on such topics as investing, real estate, frugality, saving money, debt reduction, and more - timely topics for those of us who are in New Year's...
Last minute holiday gift ideas for the insurance professional in your life
Posted on December 18, 2007If you haven't done your holiday shopping for that special actuary or risk manager on your list, never fear! We've scoured the Web to bring you a variety of last minute gift suggestions. You should be able to find something for everyone with this huge selection of insurance-related T-shirts - "Trust me, I sell insurance" for your agent, perhaps? There...
Workers Comp in New Hampshire: A Cold Wind Blows
Posted on December 17, 2007For those of you into weather, here is what's happening today on top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, home of some of the world's most extreme conditions: it's -13 degrees fahrenheit, with the wind blowing at 93 miles an hour. Wind chill a brisk -59 degrees...
News roundup: Health Wonk Review, survival story, manhole covers, I.C.E. followup, OSHA agenda
Posted on December 13, 2007David Harlow hosts the holiday edition of Health Wonk Review at Health Blawg, our final edition of the year. As one of the few attorneys in our HWR lineup, David lends a unique and valuable perspective to our discussions. Today, he sheds light on a variety of health matters in what may well be the largest edition of the year...
Changing the way we see disability
Posted on December 12, 2007For a seasonal heart warmer, you can't do much better than the creative animated ad campaign entitled Creature Discomforts (video, sound alert) that is running on BBC. The ads are sponsored by Leonard Cheshire Disability to raise awareness for and change attitudes towards disability...
California Scheming: The State Fund Audit
Posted on December 11, 2007Authorities are in the midst of a huge investigation of the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) for workers compensation in California. The fund is a hybrid: the employees are state workers, but the behemoth insurer is not subject to the rules normally governing state entities...
Contract Workers as Employees in Texas
Posted on December 10, 2007There are many permutations in the employer/independent contractor matrix. The Texas Supreme Court has ruled in Entergy v. Summers that the employees of a subcontractor - in this case, International Maintenance Corp (IMC) - can be considered employees of the general contractor...
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How to prevent an arrest from appearing in the local newspaper?
Dont know the law in Minnesota but in most jurisdictions an arrest is a matter o...
I did test negative on drug/alcohol test. I was escorted to the lab in the hospital I work in and asked in front of my co-workers who would be doing my drug testing. My test results were also sent to the office of the nu
hi, i just thought id give my sympathy as i too am in the mist of fighting a def...
How are social security death benefits split between multiple surviving spouses?
Both would receive the same benefit amount, without either being reduced from wh...
My job requires me to drive bank deposits up to two times a day using my own vehicle and gas. Although not too far, can should I be receiving compensation? One deposit run is required daily by company policy, but the man
you should be getting a mileage comp. I own my own company and I pay my employee...
I can't ask for any repairs or attend any meeting called by BD nor speak at any meetings.The BD allows OTHER non share holders to enjoy perks where as i cant. "YOUR NOT A SHARE HOLDER" The BD picks its complants to addre
Very nice site! <a href="http://apeyixo.com/ysyrrys/1.html">chea...
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