Disability Law

Pot Smoking with Bears: Stupidity is (Still) Compensable

Posted on April 01, 2011
We last encountered Brock Hopkins back in June of 2010, when he had secured workers comp benefits for severe injuries incurred while feeding bears. He was a bit stoned at the time. Russell Kilpatrick, owner of Great Bear Adventures in Montana, contended that Hopkins was a volunteer...

Wonks Play Ball

Posted on March 31, 2011
Jason Shafrin of Healthcare Economics is hosting the "Opening Day" version of the Health Wonk Review. Jason can be forgiven for his rather bizarre notion of the Milwaukee Brewers winning the World Series, as his line up of health-related articles is first rate...

NCCI study on safe lifting programs for long-term care facilities

Posted on March 30, 2011
A few years ago, an important NIOSH study on nursing home lifting equipment demonstrated that the benefits outweigh the costs. In addition to recapping the equipment investment in less than three years, NIOSH found a 61% reduction in resident-handling workers' compensation injury rates; a 66% drop in lost workday rates; and a 38% decline in restricted workdays...

Cavalcade of Risk and other news notes from the around the Web

Posted on March 24, 2011
Ready for a bi-weekly grab-bag of risk-related reading? Jacob A. Irwin hosts Cavalcade of Risk # 127 - Riskiest Jobs Edition at My Personal Finance Journey. Agents & Experience Mods - What role do insurance agents play in keeping a client's workers' comp losses as low as possible? In PropertyCasualty360, Kevin Ring of the Institute of WorkCompProfessionals offers Six Ways...

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The heroes of Fukushima; insurance issues related to Japan's catastrophe

Posted on March 22, 2011
We are now a week and a half into the Japanese disaster, which encompassed a terrible trio of catastrophic events: an earthquake, a tsunami, and a near-nuclear meltdown that looked to be vying for a top spot in the record books. The death toll tops 9,000, with another 13,000 still missing...

Single Payer in Vermont: Occ Doc or Not?

Posted on March 21, 2011
In a move stunning for its contrariness, Vermont is moving toward a single payer health care system. In the course of the debate, the inevitable issue of whether to include workers comp has come up. At this point, a committee will make recommendations on whether to "integrate or align" workers comp with the state's radical reconfiguration of the health care...

Health Wonk Review's Spring Training edition & assorted news items

Posted on March 17, 2011
Health Wonk Review - What do baseball and healthcare have in common? Find out - Glenn Laffel of Pizaazz hosts a fresh helping of the best of the health policy blogosphere: Health Wonk Review: Spring Training Edition Does an anti-immigrant climate affect workers comp costs? - At Comp Time, Roberto Ceniceros discusses a recent news story in which Tom Hensley,...

Are nurses and health care workers facing more on-the-job violence?

Posted on March 14, 2011
If you asked the average person to list professions with the highest rates of violent assault, few would put health care professionals high up on that list. But the reality is that when it comes to workplace violence, nurses, nursing aids, and paramedics have the dubious distinction of being very high up on the list; only police and correctional officers...

Disaster in Japan

Posted on March 11, 2011
Our thoughts and prayers are with the people in Asia who are suffering through a disaster of unprecedented scale. The digital age allows us to watch the apocalyptic images: entire neighborhoods being swept to sea; burning houses borne upon the dark tide of water and debris; hundreds of vehicles swept along as if they were rudderless boats; the boats themselves...

The wacky world of workers comp

Posted on March 11, 2011
We have to wonder if TV has really jumped the shark when we heard the premise of an upcoming sitcom today. Now you've probably all been feeling slighted: there have been cop shows, doctor shows, teacher shows, even mortician shows - why the heck don't claims adjusters and insurance agents ever get any love? Relax, your prayers are answered: Morgan...

Risk roundup for the week

Posted on March 09, 2011
Jay and Louis Norris have posted the 126th edition of Cavalcade of Risk at Colorado Life Insurance Insider - and it's a good one. We post blog news roundups regularly - and we are always delighted when our friends from Colorado host - they do a great job summarizing, presenting and commenting on submissions...

Are events in Wisconsin part of a union busting initiative?

Posted on March 08, 2011
Later this month, we will mark the 100 year anniversary of New York's horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, an event that claimed the lives of 146 garment workers - young girls and women - who had been locked in the sweatshop to prevent theft. Most died in stairwells, jumping down the single elevator shaft, or by hurtling themselves from 9th story...

Health Wonk Review, CTE, bill review, messing with Texas, and more

Posted on March 03, 2011
Jared Rhoads of The Lucidicus Project hosts this week's Health Wonk Review, and he dishes up a heaping helping of the blogosphere's best heath policy posts from the last two weeks. Check it out! Happy Birthday - to David Williams at Health Business Blog for 6 years of quality healthcare blogging...

A Bullet to the Heart

Posted on March 01, 2011
Dave Duerson was a star safety in the NFL. He used his head in the way that aggressive defensive backs often do - as a battering ram to bring an opponent down, maybe even jar the ball loose. He was articulate, generous and in his post-football life, successful...

Medical Marijuana: Walmart Wins! (Walmart Loses)

Posted on February 28, 2011
We have been following the sad saga of Joseph Casias, a former Walmart employee in Battle Creek, Michigan. Casias, 29, suffers from a sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor. (He looks so much older than his years.) After 5 unusually successful years as a Walmart employee, he injured his knee on the job, after which he underwent a mandatory...

Guns on campus: things are heating up in Texas

Posted on February 24, 2011
Amid much controversy, the Texas Legislature is considering SB354, a bill that would allow licensed students and professors to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. The bill has passed a Senate committee and has been referred to the Committee of Criminal Justice, where it will be up for a hearing...

Annals of Medicine: Refuse to Fuse?

Posted on February 21, 2011
Dr. Trang Nguyen has some serious doubts about the effectiveness of spinal fusions, especially in workers comp. In his study of 1,450 cases of chronic lower back pain in the Ohio comp system, Dr. Nguyen focused on an outcome near and dear to the hearts of all comp practitioners: the number of injured workers returning to the workplace after surgery...

Health Wonk Review, Valentine's week edition, and other news of note

Posted on February 17, 2011
When is healthcare like a box of chocolates? Find out over at Colorado Long Term Care Insider, where Louise & Jay Norris host an excellent Valentine's Week Edition of Health Wonk Review. Other news of note: Tasers & cop claims - Roberto Ceniceros of Comp Time has an interesting post on how taser use by police is reducing injury rates...

Record number of grain bin fatalities in 2010; OSHA cites employers

Posted on February 16, 2011
A Purdue University report revealed that 2010 was the deadliest year in decades for grain bin fatalities. According to a Bloomberg story by Michael J. Crumb, the report indicated there were "51 grain bin accidents last year, up from 38 in 2009 and the most since tracking began in 1978...

Independent Contractors in Pennsylvania

Posted on February 14, 2011
If Missouri is the "Show me" state, Pennsylvania is in the running for the "show me the documents" state. They have a way of over-engineering solutions to what may or may not be problems. (See our prior post ["Blood on the Forms"] on requiring injured workers to sign 2 forms at the time of injury...

Cavalcade of Risk; interesting workers compensation history

Posted on February 09, 2011
Feeling risky? Catch up on your reading - Jaan Sidorov of The Disease Management Care Blog hosts this week's risky roundup: The 124th Cavalcade of Risk Work Comp history Yesterday, we posted a feature on window washers as a dangerous profession, which included some vintage photos of workers pre-OSHA...

Dangerous jobs: window washing at extreme heights

Posted on February 08, 2011
Image from Wikipedia Master Cleaners Ltd a central London cleaning company, has posted a fascinating photo feature on their blog called The World's Most Fearless Cleaners. We issue a vertigo warning in advance. Also, the caveat that we are not endorsing the safety procedures or lack thereof that are depicted in the photos...

Medical Marijuana in the Workplace: Dude, Lock Me Out!

Posted on February 07, 2011
We have been tracking the hazardous effort to integrate medical marijuana into the workplace. It's not an easy fit. The burden falls on legislators, who write the laws, and on judges, who interpret these laws. The testing ground is often California, where fantasy and reality are so intertwined, it's getting more and more difficult to separate them...

Health Wonk Review: Stormy Weather

Posted on February 03, 2011
This dramatic satellite shot from NOAA captures the scope of the blizzard that swept across the country in the last few days. Being snowbound offered our contributing bloggers lots of time to think about all things healthcare, and in that arena, the climate is almost as stormy as the weather...

12 Winter storm-related hazards & a tool kit for preventing problems

Posted on February 01, 2011
This storm is a whopper of potentially historic proportion, with warnings and advisories covering a 2,000+ mile swathe from New Mexico and the Southern Plains to the upper Mid-Atlantic and New England. Four states - Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois - have already declared a state of emergency...

John T. Dibble's Sympathetic Ear

Posted on January 31, 2011
John T. Dibble is an arbitrator in Illinois. He was very active in the cases for carpal tunnel syndrome filed by 230 guards at the Menard Correctional Center. The guards alleged that their injuries were due primarily to the constant turning of keys in antiquated and rather sticky locks...

Cavalcade of Risk #123 and assorted news notes from the blogosphere

Posted on January 26, 2011
Get your biweekly fix of risk: Cavalcade of Risk #123: High-Yield Edition is now posted at The Notwithstanding Blog. There's an eclectic roundup of posts and you might take the time to visit the host blog too - our blogger is a Canadian med student studying here in the U...

Yes, Virginia, There Might Be a Sanity Clause

Posted on January 25, 2011
Two years ago we blogged the sad story of Arthur Pierce, a commercial driver in Virginia who suffered a traumatic brain injury and eventually died from a fall on the job. Pierce's death was deemed non-compensable due to a cruel and rather peculiar glitch in the Virginia comp statute...

Health Wonk Review and a news roundup

Posted on January 20, 2011
It's deja vu all over again at Managed Care Matters, where Joe Paduda hosts commentary on the rematch of the healthcare reform debate in this week's Health Wonk Review: Repeal, replace, renew, revise, revisit - what the bloggers say. It's a great issue with good contributions and diverse opinions on the matter...

Low clearance: truckers, this one is for you

Posted on January 19, 2011
A website called 11foot8 videos chronicles "the good, the bad and the ugly" of low clearance truck accidents at a single Durham NC trestle bridge. While one might think this is the purview of inexperienced drivers and rental trucks, the videos don't lie: professionals have had their share of accidents, too...

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