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Disability Law

Workers Comp Insider

About workers compensation insurance, risk management, workplace health and safety, occupational medicine, and related topics.
By Lynch Ryan

Post Frequency: 5.3/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 15:16:48

The Best Health Care in the World - Part Four: Do the Statistics Tell the Whole Truth?

Posted on March 19, 2008
We 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
In 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...

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Return to work and disabled vets

Posted on March 12, 2008
The 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
Transportation 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, 2008
Health 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, 2008
Paul 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, 2008
Joe 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, 2008
If 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, 2008
We 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, 2008
From 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, 2008
A 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, 2008
There 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Health 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, 2008
Insurance 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, 2008
Our 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, 2008
Chad 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, 2008
Cavalcade 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
We 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, 2008
In 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, 2008
Health 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, 2008
We 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, 2008
Workers 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, 2008
When 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, 2008
As 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...

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