Tag: Workers Comp

Two U.S. senators said Friday that they’re adding their names to a letter sent to the Department of Labor over concerns that a proposed rule by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration may negatively impact volunteer fire departments.

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, announced that they’ve joined a growing call to revisit the proposed OSHA rule because it would put burdensome regulations on organizations that are staffed by volunteers and have limited resources.

The proposed rule, introduced by OSHA earlier this year, would require fire departments to furnish new reports, trainings, equipment and health services.

In a letter, Sens. Collins and King wrote that volunteer firefighters have raised concern over the proposed rule because they lack the finances and personnel necessary to comply.

“For many departments, implementation of this rule would render significant shares of their equipment noncompliant,” the senators said in a statement. “The financial burden associated with replacing that equipment and furnishing the reports, assessments, trainings and health services required by the rule would be prohibitive for volunteer departments, whose budgets are already strained.”

U.S. senators from Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota and Wyoming have also called on OSHA to consider revising the proposed rule because of its potential disparate impact to volunteer fire agencies.  

 

 

 

 

New York City transit workers faced workplace violence at an exorbitant rate during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Urban Health.

Around 90% of mass transit operators experienced some type of violence or harassment on the job between 2020 and 2023, the study states. Female employees made up most of the victims.

The study, led by researchers from New York University’s School of Global Public Health, found that 89% of mass transit workers reported being victimized at work. Around 48% of workers surveyed reported verbal harassment or physical assault, just over 20% of workers said they experienced theft and 6.3% reported being sexually assaulted.

“The proportion of public-facing transit workers who have experienced violence or harassment is remarkably high, and far exceeds the rates of attacks against other workers,” Robyn Gershon, clinical professor of epidemiology at the NYU School of Global Public Health, said in a statement.

Ms. Gershon and her team surveyed 1,297 transit workers in late 2023 and early 2024 to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on subway and bus operators.

The researchers said New York City has since implemented improved safety measures to protect public transit workers.

“Despite important strides being made to protect the health and safety of this vital workforce, much more work remains to ensure the safest possible workplace for these dedicated and essential workers,” Ms. Gershon stated. 

 

 

 

An Ohio appellate court on Tuesday refused to toss scheduled-loss workers compensation benefits awarded to a worker whose foot was partially amputated in a 2021 industrial accident.

The Ohio Court of Appeals denied a bid by Randstad North America Inc. to have the state Industrial Commission vacate its awarding of loss of use benefits to Andrew Bullard, whose foot needed to be partially amputated after it was crushed by a forklift.

A hearing officer awarded loss of use benefits to Mr. Bullard in March 2022. Randstad appealed, arguing the hearing officer erred because Mr. Bullard’s foot was only partially amputated and there was no finding that the loss of use of the foot was a permanent condition warranting loss of use compensation.

The Industrial Commission denied Randstad’s appeal, and the employer appealed in civil court.

While refusing to toss the claimants award entirely, the appeals court did determine that Randstad was entitled to limited relief and remanded the case to the Industrial Commission.

The court said the commission abused its discretion when it “failed to specifically state what evidence it relied upon and explain its reasoning for its apparent conclusion that claimant’s loss of use was permanent.”

“Because the issue of permanency is inextricably intertwined with the employer’s remaining arguments related to loss of use, the matter must be returned to the commission for a determination on permanency before the employer’s other arguments may be addressed,” the court wrote. 

 

 

Reducing a company’s so-called “operational friction” at the onset of a workers compensation claim can better manage outcomes and ultimately reduce costs associated with workplace injuries, according to panelists speaking at the Workers’ Compensation Educational Conference Tuesday.

To illustrate a problem that exists within many companies, panelist Deborah Weigand, Troy, Michigan-based managing director at Aon Global Risk Consulting, showed attendees a chart featured in a white paper published by Aon in May on the lack of coordination and understanding of objectives within a company, and how that can affect workers comp’s ultimate goal of return to work and claims closure for injured workers.

Weighing the goals and interests of a company’s risk managers, claims managers, human resources department, operations team, and claims administrators against workers comp metrics such as loss costs, average lost work days, statistics from mandated Occupational Safety and Health Administration reporting, litigation costs, and the numbers of employees working with modified duty, Ms. Weigand quipped, “we don’t have one objective that everybody is chasing.”

She told attendees that “many of the top decisions are made by a small group of people who may not have a full picture of the claimant, the work environment, the work exposures and the potential job modifications that are available (and) this leads to struggles with return-to-work placement, certainly with documentation, and often the data needed for (injury) prevention activities.”

Jason Wheeler, Vice President, Nashville, Tennessee-based national sales & account management, CorVel Corp., told attendees it comes down to “competing values” among separate departments: “the objective is to move from the agendas, the status, and the egos to a place of collective results and to break down silos, to create a more holistic view to a program and to improve the experience overall.”

Panelist Victoria Gonzales, Beaverton, Oregon-based vice president of human resources at Tristar Insurance Group, said better collaboration with HR, for example, can help adjustors understand the claimant at the onset of an injury and with return to work.

“That’s our job is to get full pictures of our employees,” she said. “HR can be helpful in providing that full picture of the claimant: the work environment, the work group, coworkers, job descriptions. What are their exact duties on paper? We also have information on the person in terms of conduct or discipline: Are they cooperative? Are they a rule follower? Are they someone who is problematic? We tend to see patterns like that in human resources.”

Panelist Heather Barnes, Syracuse, New York-based senior claims manager, Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., said improving collaboration can help with investigating claims.

“Coming from the claim site, how many times have I sat in on a claim review with a customer and we finally have all of the parties at the table, and we present a claim, and we find out information that we probably should have known about a year or two ago at the beginning of the claim?” she said. “Some examples we were talking about would be if the injured worker had a prior injury, or maybe it’s a carpal tunnel claim and they play the drums and a band.”

 

 

 

 

Congressional members are urging the U.S. Department of Labor to investigate allegations that some state safety agencies are tipping off employers before workplace safety inspections.

Lawmakers on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce wrote to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su on Tuesday requesting that the department look into reports that Cal/OSHA, California’s state Occupational Safety and Health plan, provided employers with advanced notice of inspections.

“Multiple workers and advocates also spoke of what appeared to be a widespread belief that Cal/OSHA staff who act on worker complaints will warn employers when they’re coming for an inspection, allowing supervisors to correct or clean up worksites,” the letter states.

The Congress members were referencing a recent legislative hearing in California during which state lawmakers heard “multiple allegations” from farmworkers and their advocates that the state OSHA plan agency was giving a heads-up to companies.

The letter also mentions a recent report about a resurgence of child labor in South Carolina. The report mentioned a case in which a South Carolina employer admitted violating federal child labor rules and standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The lawmakers said the South Carolina account raises questions about the state’s compliance with state OSHA enforcement and the possibility of “federal funds being used to help employers evade detection for child labor trafficking and oppressive child labor violations,” the letter states. 

 

 

Pinnacol Assurance, a Denver-based workers compensation insurer, released a report Tuesday showing that workers are more at risk for injuries when working in extreme temperatures.

The insurer said its claims data shows that workers in both outdoor and indoor settings are 52% more susceptible to injury when temperatures rise above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

Common injuries on extremely hot days include strains, cuts, falls and “strikes.”

Workers considered to be particularly vulnerable are those in the construction, road maintenance, landscaping and other outdoor industries, the report states.

“When workers are exposed to excessive heat, their physical and cognitive abilities can be impaired, increasing the likelihood of accidents,” Tom Denberg, Pinnacol’s medical director, said in a statement.

Employers looking to cut down on worker injuries should implement heat safety measures, including providing hydration, rest breaks and shaded areas to ensure a “safer and more productive work environment,” Mr. Denberg stated.

In addition to outdoor professions, employees who work in indoor settings, such as teachers, restaurant workers and maintenance workers, are also at an increased risk of developing injuries due to heat exposure, the report states.

 

 

ORLANDO, Florida — To go from reactive to proactive workers compensation industry is embracing data collection and analysis to gauge where injuries are occurring, how long injured workers are staying off the job and why, and how to better manage the trajectory of claims, according to panelists speaking at the Workers’ Compensation Educational Conference Monday.

“When issues start to creep up that we’re just kind of saying, okay, is this a trend? Is it an anomaly? Is it something that needs to be focused on? And that’s the point I would make; you got to have enough of a look at your data and spend enough time with it where you can take those types of things out,” said Max Koonce, Memphis, Tennessee-based chief claims officer, Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc.

Michael Pettit, Frisco, Texas-based director of data analytics at Sedgwick, said the industry has historically acted as “damage control” for companies with injured workers. Data, he said, gives employers a better look at what’s happening to their claims.

It’s one of the areas of particular interest to the C-suite, which has invested in data analytics and technology to improve programs and outcomes, according to Mr. Koonce.

Nancy Strubler, director of workers compensation for Lisle, Illinois-based National Express LLC, a transportation company that operates school buses and other types of commercial vehicles, said data collection on injury rates and causation, including gathering data from devices put in vehicles, is helping the company see where more training may be needed.

“This is how we can help prevent (accidents and claims); the data shows us that within the past 30 days we’ve had 26 accidents for employees that are six months or less. What can we do to keep up that training?” she said.

At Albertsons Co., a large grocery chain based in Boise, Idaho, the company has its eyes on treatment data for injured workers, Kelly Webb, the company’s senior director of national claims, told attendees that the reports show that more claimants are receiving physical therapy but that pharmaceutical costs are coming down as a result.

The data “shows me that the doctors are changing their behaviors,” she said. “Our opioids are way, way down. So we’re using physical therapy and those kind of conservative modalities instead of handing out the drugs. I think that’s a good thing, and I’m willing to pay for that.”

“On the other hand, we got to measure our physical therapy programs now and make sure that the turnaround times are good, and then we’re getting people in quickly and they can relieve their pain before it gets worse,” she added.

 

 

 

 

Survivor benefits awarded to the widow of a coal miner who developed lung disease after 34 years on the job should have come from the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund and not the parent company of the deceased man’s former employer, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday.

In Apogee Coal Co. et al. v. Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, the federal appeals court said an administrative law judge improperly assigned benefits responsibility to Arch Resources Inc., Apogee’s former parent corporation, and not the federal trust fund.

The 7th Circuit, in vacating the lower ruling, also said the Benefits Review Board erred in affirming the administrative law judge’s determination that Arch Resources was liable for the benefits awarded to Susan Grimes, widow of Harold Grimes, who died from lung cancer in 2018.

The court said the administrative law judge and review board failed to identify any provisions in the Black Lung Benefits Act or its implementing regulations that justify holding Arch Resources responsible for the benefits obligations of Apogee.

The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund pays benefits to injured coal miners if coal companies or their parent corporations are not capable of paying for the cost of benefits.

The 7th Circuit remanded the case to the review board with instructions that Ms. Grimes’ benefits be assigned to the trust fund. 

 

 

ORLANDO, Florida — The stability of the workers compensation line has opened the doors for risk managers and the insurance industry to improve partnerships to maintain the line’s successes, according to panelists speaking at the Workers’ Compensation Educational Conference Monday.

Zeroing in on risk managers, who may be taxed with managing the constraints in harder insurance lines such as property, panelists said that a less-challenging comp environment provides an opportunity to better work with brokers, insurers, third-party administrators and legal teams to develop strategies to maintain the market’s stability.

“The challenge for us is to think about what we’re bringing to help risk managers better manage their new and evolving risks, but also risk mitigation as they’re facing it every day,” said Kimberly George, Chicago-based global chief brand officer, Sedgwick Claims Management Services Inc.

“It’s time to level set (to) know your risk managers current hot buttons, what their goals are, what their view on tech is, how they think about the culture of an injured worker and how they’re treated… If we’re not in those conversations, we’re not as effective partners as we need to be,” she said.

Mike Chang, New York-based CEO of corporate risk & brokering in North America for Willis Towers Watson PLC, said working together during easy times prepares for future challenges. “Because everything changes during tough times, when you really get to see who your partner is. …What you put in is what you get out of it.”

Mark Wilhelm, St. Louis-based executive chairman at Safety National Casualty Corp and chief brokerage relations officer for Tokio Marine Holdings Inc., said companies often forgo services provided by insurers to help with risk management. “It pays so many dividends for risk managers and clients if they let the carrier have those face-to-face meetings,” he said.

Better partnerships within organizations are another focus for maintaining stability in workers compensation, according to the panelists.

“I almost want to call it a marketing campaign; where we’ve gone from ‘no’ to ‘know,’ and we’ve involved all stakeholders, from our C–suite to our salespeople, and our operations,” said Susan Shemanski, Jacksonville, Florida-based vice president risk president of corporate risk management of The Adecco Group, a staffing company. “We want to know what people are doing, and we’re giving them advice as far as what they can put in place to really just change that risk.”

Melora Copeland, Charlotte, North Carolina-based director of insurance for Compass Group USA Inc., a hospitality company, said it is common within organizations for “everybody to run away from risk management” but that “we’re trying to institute across–the–board ideas.”

“We want to hear from our field operations teams, what’s working, what’s not working,” she said. “We use a system so we get some live feedback from groups about claims or opportunities… We try to get them reported early so we hear about things and we can mitigate from other losses and find best practices. … We can all learn from each other.”

 

 

 

 

A study by the American College of Cardiology has found that chronic occupational noise exposure in power loom weavers was associated with increased blood pressure levels.

The study, which the college said was presented this week at the ACC Asia 2024 conference in Delhi, India, also said a worker’s chance of suffering from high blood pressure increased by 10% for each year of exposure.

“In addition to treating the high blood pressure through appropriate means, we must find ways to mitigate the exposure to the noise if we want to reduce the cardiovascular risk of these patients,” Golam Dastageer Prince, a doctor from Bangladesh and one of the study’s lead authors, said in a statement.

Researchers looked predominantly at 289 male workers in Bangladesh between January and December 2023 and found that the study population did not wear hearing protection.

The study’s authors said the goal is to raise awareness of noise-induced hearing loss but also to focus on improving workplace safety by using appropriate personal protective equipment.

The study participants were found to have a 31.5% rate of high blood pressure with an additional 53.3% being considered prehypertensive.

The study focused on workers exposed to more than 85 decibels of occupational noise for long periods of time.