Tag: Workers Comp

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Wednesday the U.S. Postal Service exposed workers to struck-by, electrical, crushing, fire and other health hazards at three of its facilities in Tennessee and issued $350,136 in fines. 

OSHA also issued a written notice to the Postal Service for having a safety incentive program that awards workers for being accident-free, saying, “These programs can discourage workers from reporting accidents and injuries.”

The three facilities cited are the Knoxville Processing and Distribution Center, the Music City Annex in Nashville, and the Columbia, Tennessee, Post Office.

In addition to exposing workers to energized parts of machines without guards or covers and unprotected electrical wiring, OSHA found numerous violations involving forklift and vehicle operations. It also found backed-up sewers that left raw sewage on restroom floors and in work areas at one facility.

A manufacturing company was cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after a plant supervisor suffered third-degree burns during a steam explosion this summer in Ohio.

OSHA said it issued a citation for one willful violation and three serious safety violations to Waterford, Ohio-based Globe Metallurgical Inc. after a July 10 workplace incident this summer involving a steam explosion that was caused by mixing water with tons of superheated materials.

At the time of the incident, employees were pouring molten material into a large ladle for cast forms when the material burned through the ladle, causing 8,000 pounds of 3,000-degree molten material to spill, according to OSHA.

Workers attempted to remedy the situation by pouring water onto the spill, but an explosion ended up occurring, causing the worksite supervisor to suffer serious burns.

OSHA inspectors allege the company failed to develop proper containment measures for molten materials and that it failed to provide workers with adequate personal protective equipment.

OSHA proposed penalties of $188,533.

In a separate but similar case, OSHA cited another Ohio company after three workers – one of whom ended up dying – were severely injured while conducting furnace-tapping operations.

OSHA cited Canton, Ohio-based TimkenSteel for one willful violation and proposed $145,027 in penalties after the July 26 incident at the company’s Faircrest plant.

The injuries occurred when an arc furnace exploded after water became encapsulated in molten metal.

OSHA investigators allege the company failed to provide furnace attendants with protection from potential steam explosions.

Both companies have 15 days to contest the citations.

 

 

Employers and insurers who wish to discontinue or reduce medications prescribed to an injured worker would have to follow notification protocols under a bill filed in Connecticut on Thursday.

H.B. 6550 states that “if an employer, any insurer acting on behalf of the employer or any other entity acting on behalf of the employer proposes discontinuing or reducing payment for any prescription drug, that a physician, surgeon, physician assistant or advanced practice registered nurse has deemed reasonable or necessary… such employer, insurer or other entity shall notify the administrative law judge and the employee, by certified mail, of such proposed discontinuance or reduction of such payments.”

The notice must “specify the reason for the proposed discontinuance or reduction and the date such proposed discontinuance or reduction will take effect” and inform the injured worker that they have 15 days to request a hearing.

The bill was referred to Joint Committee on Labor and Public Employees.

 

An Alabama plastics manufacturer has agreed to pay $242,928 in restitution and also reimburse funeral expenses to the estate of a 45-year-old worker who died in August 2017 after being pulled into the moving rollers of a plastics extrusion machine at a plant in Helena, Alabama.

ABC Polymer Industries LLC pleaded guilty to a willful violation of workplace safety requirements in an agreement in federal court in Birmingham, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Tuesday.

OSHA inspectors said the company failed to provide machine-guarding measures to protect employees. It also said the company lacked safety procedures to shut down or isolate stored energy.

In a separate case involving a worker’s death, OSHA announced Monday it cited a lumber supply company after an 18-year-old worker was struck and killed by a forklift.

OSHA cited Carrollton, Texas-based Hixson Lumber Co. LLC for one willful and four serious violations after inspectors said the business allegedly failed to properly train the teenage worker before his July 23, 2022, death at a job site in Rison, Arkansas.

The teen had been searching for the keys to the forklift after dropping them, and the machine rolled and fatally struck him, according to OSHA.

OSHA said the forklift’s original parking brake had been replaced with a makeshift one that failed to secure the vehicle at the time of the incident.

OSHA proposed $218,759 in penalties against the company, which has 15 days to contest the citations.

 

Prescriptions for the painkilling opioid codeine have decreased in states that have legalized marijuana, according to a study published in the research journal Health Economics.

The study, published on Jan. 18 by researchers from Cornell University, George Mason University, the University of Georgia and the University of Pittsburgh, drew on data analyzing opioid shipments from 11 states that have legalized cannabis for adult use.

The study period was between 2010 and 2019 and compared legal marijuana states with those that still outlaw the federally illegal, Schedule I drug.

The researchers stated that their study examined the impact of legal recreational marijuana on prescription opioid dispensing across all payers and endpoints, including pharmacies, hospitals and specialists.

The study took into account factors such as opioid prescribing limits, and it addressed opioids of various types including codeine.

They determined that states that legalized recreational cannabis use have seen around a 26% reduction in the amount of codeine dispensed at retail pharmacies, and that the findings are “potentially promising from a public health perspective.”

Codeine, the researchers said, is one class of opioid that appears to be used non-medically as compared with other prescription opioids.

The team said that their study differs from previous studies that have looked at recreational marijuana laws and how they affect opioid prescriptions financed by private and public payers or dispensed to unique endpoints.

According to the researchers, a total of 21 states have now legalized marijuana recreationally.

Thirty-seven states, including Washington, D.C., have medical cannabis programs, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

 

 

Maryland lawmakers on Tuesday jumped on the trend of expanding workers compensation benefits to first responders diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

H.B. 337, which was sent to the House Economic Matters Committee, states that a first responder who is diagnosed by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist with post-traumatic stress disorder would be “presumed under certain circumstances to have an occupational disease that was suffered in the line of duty and is compensable under workers compensation law.”

The bill would limit the applicability of the presumption to benefits for services related to the diagnosis and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder for two years immediately following an initial diagnosis.

For the second time this week Florida lawmakers introduced a bill that would add crime scene investigators and 911 dispatchers to the list of professionals who qualify for the state’s presumption for post-traumatic stress disorder.

S.B. 352, introduced Tuesday, is a companion bill to H.B. 337, which was filed Monday.

 

 

Nearly a third of all workers infected with COVID-19 suffered or are suffering from “long COVID,” according to the New York State Insurance Fund.

NYSIF said its analysis of COVID-19 comp claims filed between January 2020 and March 2022 found 977 of 3,139 claimants had lingering symptoms. NYSIF also said about 18% of workers with long COVID — about 5% of COVID-19 claimants — could not return to work for more than one year.

Nearly all claimants with comorbidities or who were hospitalized for an initial infection experienced long COVID.

NYSIF also said about 40% of workers with long COVID returned to work within 60 days of infection while still receiving treatment.

“If broadly reflective, these findings begin to fill information gaps about the labor market, including an underappreciated reason for the many unfilled jobs and the declining labor participation rate since the emergency of the pandemic,” the report says.

NYSIF also said different trends in COVID claims filed by essential workers could be a “blind spot” for policymakers.

More than 83% of COVID-19 claims filed with NYSIF came from essential workers in health care, law enforcement or consumer care, but only 29% of essential workers had long COVID, compared with 44% of other workers.

NYSIF said it’s not clear when the proportion of long COVID claims is lower among essential workers.

“It may be because essential workers might not have been able to stay home from work beyond the required quarantine period,” the report says. “Another possibility may be that nurses and physicians self-treated their symptoms. If so, long COVID rates, particularly for hospital workers, may appear lower than they are.”

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.

 

 

Injured workers in states where medical marijuana is legal face obstacles when seeking reimbursement for the drug, despite legislation aimed at simplifying the process.

A court ruling in Pennsylvania could soon clarify the issue for employers in that state, but rulings in other states leave an array of legal precedents for multistate companies to navigate.

Employers often remain concerned that paying for the cost of a drug that is illegal at the federal level could put them in danger of prosecution, experts say.

Medical marijuana is legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia, and several states have introduced legislation this year that would allow or expand its use, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which advocates for decriminalization of marijuana.

Lawmakers in Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Carolina and Tennessee have introduced, or are planning to introduce, legislation to legalize medical marijuana, according to NORML.

New Jersey, Texas and West Virginia, meanwhile, are looking to expand and amend their existing medical marijuana programs.

Under federal law, though, cannabis is illegal and classified as a Schedule 1 drug, along with heroin, LSD, ecstasy and other potent drugs.

Amid legislative changes, state courts have split on whether injured workers should have access to marijuana and how. Some have ruled reimbursement is permitted, even ordered it in some cases, and others have said it would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act.  

Employers and workers compensation insurers often say that regardless of their own preferences, they are barred from paying reimbursements for cannabis, said Jenifer Kaufman, an Abington, Pennsylvania-based claimants attorney. Cannabis is sometimes used as an alternative to prescription painkillers.

Employers in Pennsylvania are waiting for a ruling on cannabis reimbursements from the state’s Commonwealth Court, which is soon expected to issue a decision in Sheetz v. Workers Compensation Appeal Board (Firestone Tire & Rubber). Courts in the state have not previously ruled on the issue.

Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana law contains no requirement for employers to cover the cost of a worker’s medical marijuana but it is silent on reimbursement.

“They don’t define coverage,” Ms. Kaufman said. “I don’t believe that coverage and reimbursement are the same thing.”

Elsewhere, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine in 2018 overturned lower court rulings allowing injured workers to be reimbursed for medical marijuana.

The court wrote in Bourgoin v. Twin Rivers Paper Co. that “an employer that is ordered to compensate an employee for medical marijuana costs is thereby required to commit a federal crime.”

“I was disappointed, frankly. I thought the appellate division got it right,” attorney Paul Sighinolfi said of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine’s Bourgoin decision.

Mr. Sighinolfi was the executive director and chairman of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board from 2011 to 2019. He now serves as senior managing director of Burlington, Massachusetts-based Ametros Financial Corp.

Other state appeals courts – such as those in New Hampshire and New Jersey — have taken an opposite stance, ruling that insurers and employers must or can reimburse.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 declined to take up the issue after conflicting messages from state courts. It was asked to address the issue following a ruling by the Supreme Court of Minnesota determining employers do not have to reimburse for medical marijuana in comp.

The denial put the issue back in the state courts.

Bert Randall Jr., a defense attorney with Baltimore-based Franklin & Prokopik P.C., said he’s “hesitant to support reimbursement … only because of the substantial issues that employers and their insurers face when it comes to banking issues and dealing with some of the safety concerns by the use of marijuana,” which is unregulated in terms of dosing.

Because of a federal prohibition on illegal industries using the banking system, “it really puts employers and their insurers in very difficult positions,” he said.

In some states where courts have ordered reimbursement, payment has gone directly to the injured worker and not to a dispensary or provider, Mr. Randall said.  

Clients have had to come up with “fairly odd protocols” for reimbursement, he said.

“The mechanics of it, because of the restrictions on banking and making certain types of payments and the potential repercussions from that, creates a lot of concern,” he said.

Proposed legislation filed in New York on Wednesday would create a COVID-19 presumption in workers compensation death benefits cases and also amend current comp law concerning temporary benefits.  

Assembly Bill 2145, also known as the COVID-19 Injured Workers’ Protection Act, would establish a COVID-19 presumption for public employee death benefits in cases where employees were required to physically report to work and ended up contracting the virus.

The presumption would apply to cases where the head of a member’s retirement system or a medical board determines that COVID-19 was a significant contributing factor in the worker’s death.

The measure would allow employers to initiate comp payments and payments for prescribed medicine to employees and continue those payments for 60 days at the temporary total disability rate.

The bill proposes to remove language in existing law that requires injured employees to enter into agreements with employers to ensure the continued payments of temporary compensation.   

A.B. 2145 would also amend current law by adding a presumption that treatment rendered by a medical provider for COVID-19 was done so on an emergent basis and did not require prior authorization to quality for comp benefits.

The bill also says that employers who fail within 60 days of the commencement of temporary disability payments to provide notice of termination shall be deemed to be admitting liability and the temporary payments will be converted to a notice of compensation payable. 

 

The California Division of Workers’ Compensation last year suspended more providers who were convicted of fraud than in any year since 2017.

The DWC suspended 261 providers in 2022, according to information on its website — more than five times the total suspensions during the height of the pandemic. The division suspended five providers in 2021 and 42 in 2020.

California lawmakers in 2016 passed A.B. 1244, which included a provision requiring the DWC to suspend providers convicted of fraud or related crimes, who have lost their license or who have been kicked out of a program such as Medicare or Medicaid starting in 2017.

The division suspended 166 providers in the first year of the new law and another 175 in 2018. The DWC suspended 83 providers in 2019.

Information on the DWC’s fraud page shows the agency suspended another 33 providers so far this year, bringing the total suspensions since 2017 to 765. An additional 71 suspensions are currently pending.

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.