Tag: Workers Comp

Injured workers self-reporting anxiety and depression increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with numbers jumping “significantly” between 2019 and 2020 and not returning to pre-pandemic rates in 2022 as the pandemic waned, according to an industry trends report released Tuesday by Medrisk Inc.

In 2019, 24.4% of injured workers reported they had anxiety, 19.8% reported depression and 14.8 reported symptoms of both; and in 2022, 30% reported they had anxiety, 23.5% reported depression and 20.5% reported both, according to data compiled by Medrisk, which manages physical medicine services for injured workers.

The report also found that injured employees reporting anxiety and depression have a 7% higher utilization of physical therapy than those who did not report these conditions.

Other trends cited in the report pertained to aging and injured workers and a higher utilization of physical therapy: injured employees aged 56 and older have 21% more physical therapy visits than those aged 18 to 55; and injured employees aged 56 and older have a 31% longer duration of overall physical therapy treatment than those aged 18 to 55. 

 

Some types of non-opioid anti-Inflammatory and anticonvulsant medications prescribed to injured workers have become “significant cost drivers” in workers comp, according to a report issued Monday by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute.

CWCI’s analysis sought to identify non-opioid pain-relief medications with high average reimbursements that have an outsized impact on the total payments within their drug group, noting changes in the average amounts paid per prescription for each of these drugs from 2012 to 2021.

Highlighted were low-volume, high-cost fenoprofen calcium, with an average payment of $1,479 per script, and ketoprofen, with an average payment of $1,073 per script, which kept anti-Inflammatories at the top of the list in terms of total drug spending.

Fenoprofen calcium represented 1.4% of the 2021 anti-Inflammatory prescriptions but 33.2% of the payments. Ketoprofen represented 0.6% of the prescriptions but 9.8% of the payments.

Fenoprofen calcium also represented just 0.5% of all workers compensation prescriptions in 2021 but 8.1% of the total drug spending within the system, by far the largest percentage of any single drug.

The analysis also found that four anticonvulsant drugs — lacosamide, levetiracetam, lamotrigine, and pregabalin — accounted for 24.2% of the 2021 anticonvulsant prescriptions, but 72.5% of anticonvulsant drug expenditures.

 

 

A New Hampshire roofing contractor is facing proposed fines of $234,741 after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration accused the company of failing to protect workers against fall hazards.

OSHA on Monday announced citations for willful, repeat and safety violations against Derry, New Hampshire-based Ridge Runner Construction LLC over claims the contractor exposed employees to falls of up to 20 feet as they performed roofing work at job sites in September 2022 in the towns of Merrimack and Salem and that it failed to provide effective fall protection training to workers.

The company is also accused of failing to ensure proper anchorage for lifelines and failing to have a “competent person” inspect both worksites to identify and correct hazards.

At the Salem job site, the contractor is also accused of failing to provide proper eye and face protection for employees working with nail guns and for enabling a potential fire hazard relating to an improper gasoline container.

The company has 15 days to contest the citations.

Ridge Runner Construction received citations for similar violations in 2017 and 2021 at job sites in neighboring Massachusetts.

 

Coal miners in the United States are at an increased risk of dying from lung diseases such as cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and death rates are higher for these workers than they are among the general U.S. population, according to new research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.  

NIOSH researchers and researchers from the University of Illinois-Chicago published what they say is the largest existing study on causes of mortality in U.S. coal miners, and the results show not only that coal miners are more likely to die from diseases of the lung than other workers, but that today’s coal miners actually face greater mortality risk than their predecessors.

Central Appalachian miners born in 1940 or later were eight times more likely to die from nonmalignant respiratory diseases like black lung or COPD than members of the general U.S. population, according to the study, whose results were published Monday on the NIOSH science blog.

The eightfold increase, the authors say, was the highest odds of death attributed to non-cancerous respiratory illnesses in all age groups examined.

Nonmalignant respiratory diseases include chronic lower respiratory diseases that can be attributable to the inhalation of coal dust.

In addition to nonmalignant lung diseases, the researchers said miners are also exposed to carcinogens in their work environment, such as diesel exhaust, asbestos and radon, which could lead to cancer development.  

The study period looked at mortality rates between 1979 and 2017.

Mortality was the highest in those born more recently, the study found, perhaps due to increased rates of the severe lung disease pneumoconiosis among younger miners.  

 

 

 

An appeals court in New Mexico ruled Thursday that an injured worker’s negligence lawsuit against a contractor regarding construction scaffolding that was overloaded and thus collapsed does not meet the legal bar for a lawsuit outside of exclusive remedy.

Gildardo Camarena suffered permanent and serious bodily injury when a 95-foot-high scaffolding collapsed; he alleged in his lawsuit against his employer Superior Contracting Corp. knew that the scaffolding was overloaded two to four times its capacity with 16 tons of masonry block, according to Camarena v. Superior Contracting Corp., filed in the Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Superior after determining that Mr. Camarena failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact regarding the objective and subjective prongs of the state’s “Delgado test,” which stems from a 2001 decision in Delgado v. Phelps Dodge Chino Inc., which provided parameters on the assertion that an employer willfully injured its employee, thus subjecting it to general tort liability rather than workers comp employer protections.

The district court noted that the argument that the employer was aware of the danger posed by the overloaded scaffolding was predicated on “inferring that… supervisors testified untruthfully at their depositions,” which was an unlawful inference in this case.

The district court determined that, even if Mr. Camarena could establish that supervisors saw that the scaffolding was overloaded, the employers “conduct did not exemplify a degree of egregiousness or conduct.”

The appeals court added that evidence does not demonstrate that the employer “utterly disregarded the consequences” of its choice to send Mr. Camarena up on the overloaded scaffolding and that the record “presents no evidence that a reasonable jury could infer that (the employer) had specific knowledge about the danger or disregarded the consequences of a dangerous situation.”

 

Connecticut legislators have filed a bill that would penalize medical providers if they fail to timely respond to injured worker medical records requests.

House Bill 6797, which was introduced on Friday, says that medical providers including hospitals and emergency medical service organizations who do not provide employees in workers comp cases with requested records about their cases would be fined $25 per day until the records request is granted.  

Respondents would have 30 days from the date of receipt for the records request by which to comply before penalties kick in.

The monetary penalties would be provided to the injured worker.

Under the bill, workers comp administrative law judges would have the ability to impose an additional $100 per day for each day beyond the initial 30-day timeframe if the mandatory fine is not paid by the medical provider.

A comp judge could also assess attorneys fees against non-compliant medical providers if injured workers must obtain legal counsel to help obtain the records.

The measure also states that if medical providers contract with third parties to handle medical records, those third parties would be subject to a penalty of $50 per day if the records are not submitted within the timeframe mandated by law.

The bill also states that any contract between medical providers and third-party records providers must, by Oct. 1, contain provisions acknowledging the liability of third parties in such instances.

 

Texas lawmakers have proposed legislation that would impose a fee on workers compensation insurers in cases where injured workers fail or refuse to appear for independent medical examinations.

House Bill 2702, which was filed Thursday, would mandate that insurers pay doctors a minimum of $100 when employees do not appear at scheduled medical exams in comp claims.

The bill authorizes the workers compensation commissioner to adjust fees for inflation no later than Jan. 31 of each even-numbered year beginning in 2026, and the adjusted amount must be based upon the Medicare Economic Index for the preceding 24-month period.

Texas law permits insurers, employees or the workers comp commission to order injured worker medical exams to resolve outstanding questions about impairment caused by the compensable injury, the extent of an injury, whether a disability is directly related to a work injury, and whether the worker is able to return to work.

Current law says that exams will be performed by doctors who are on an approved list of physicians provided by the workers comp division. 

 

E-commerce retailer Amazon was again cited for workplace safety violations after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration says the company failed to protect employees against musculoskeletal injuries, this time at a Colorado warehouse.

OSHA on Thursday announced proposed penalties of $15,625 against Amazon after inspectors in August received an employee complaint related to processing speed and blocked fire exits at Amazon’s Colorado Springs, Colorado, facility.

OSHA says that Amazon’s work processes are “designed for speed, not safety,” which can cause serious injuries to workers.

The latest citations represent the third time this year that OSHA has taken action against Amazon, with prior citations over similar alleged workplace hazards issued on Jan. 18 and Feb. 1 at facilities in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois and New York.

Amazon has 15 days to contest the latest citations. 

 

A California labor contractor must pay more than $460,000 in damages and penalties to hundreds of farmworkers who claimed the employer withheld their final paychecks and transportation expenses in violation of federal law, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Thursday.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Salinas, California-based A. Oseguera Company Inc. and owners Antonio Oseguera and Hilda Oseguera Garibay to pay $410,606 in liquidated damages and $41,351 in travel and subsistence costs to 542 workers, along with $8,541 in civil penalties.

The affected employees are U.S. workers who were hired under the H-2A temporary agriculture program.

Investigators with the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division said that the company’s missed payroll led to violations of the minimum wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act and violations of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.

The company violated federal law by failing to pay workers at their required rate of pay, failing to pay outbound transportation and subsistence costs required by the H-2A program, failing to keep accurate pay records and failing to satisfy requirements of the job order.

The consent judgment also requires the company to hire a full-time monitor to oversee H-2A operations, increase the size of its surety bonds and requires supervisors, foremen and payroll personnel to undergo trainings on federal law.

The company is a labor contractor that employs workers to harvest seasonal crops in parts of California.