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| Professor John F. Burton Jr. |
Showing posts with label Illinois. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Illinois. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Professor John F Burton Jr: Illinois Proposed Changes Are Obectionable
The former chair of the 1972 National Commission on Workers' Compensation told the Illinois legislature yesterday that the proposed changes to the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act will degrade the system and reduce benefits to injured workers. Profession Emeritis John F. Burton, Jr., yesterday presented a statement to the Committee of the Whole before the Illinois House of Representatives.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Part-Time Schedules, Full-Time Headaches
| A worker at an apparel store at Woodbury Common, an outlet mall north of New York City, said that even though some part-time employees clamored for more hours, the store had hired more part-timers and cut many workers’ hours to 10 a week from 20. As soon as a nurse in Illinois arrived for her scheduled 3-to-11 p.m. shift one Christmas Day, hospital officials told her to go home because the patient “census” was low. They also ordered her to remain on call for the next four hours — all unpaid. An employee at a specialty store in California said his 25-hour-a-week job with wildly fluctuating hours wasn’t enough to live on. But when he asked the store to schedule him between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. so he could find a second job, the store cut him to 12 hours a week. These are among the experiences related by New York Times readers in more than 440 responses to an article published in Wednesday’s paper about a fledgling movement in which some states and cities are seeking to limit the harshest effects of increasingly unpredictable and on-call work schedules. Many readers voiced dismay with the volatility of Americans’ work schedules and the inability of many part-timers to cobble together enough hours to support their families.  In a comment that was the most highly recommended by others — 307 of them — a reader going by “pedigrees” wrote that workers were often reviled for not working hard enough or not being educated... |
Monday, November 25, 2013
Red Bird Express sued for allegedly refusing to rehire injured worker
A Worden trucking company is accused of refusing to allow an employee to come back to work after he was hurt on the job.
 Christopher Chancey filed a lawsuit Oct. 24 in Madison County Circuit Court against Red Bird Express.Chancey says he began working for Red Bird Express in December 2010. In August 2011, according to the complaint, Chancey was injured while working and filed a workers’ compensation claim which allowed him to take time off and receive benefits. Chancey claims his doctor said he was ready to return to work full-time onApril 15. However, when he went back to Red Bird and asked to be reinstated in his position Chancey says he was told by the company that his job had been filled and there was no other work available. Chancey also alleges Red Bird did not fill his vacant position until after his doctor released him to work again. The trucking company is accused of violating Illinois’ Workers’ Compensation Act after failing to recall Chancey to work which Chancey contends was in retaliation for filing an on-the-job injury claim. Chancey asks for more than $100,000 in punitive and compensatory damages for lost wages, lost benefits and costs of the lawsuit. Attorneys Thomas C. Rich, Kristina D. Cooksey and Michelle M. Rich of Fairview Heights represent Chancey. Madison County Circuit Court Case No. 13-L-1788 |
Illinois Employer to Pay $10K Penalty for Lack of Workers’ Comp Insurance
| An uninsured employer in Illinois has pled guilty to a Class 4 felony for refusing to obtain workers’ compensation insurance, the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission announced. John Linek, individually and as president of SMS Logistics of Chicago, has been ordered to pay a $10,000 penalty for refusing to obtain workers’ compensation insurance. The IWCC’s Insurance Compliance Unit had been requesting compliance with the Act from this trucking firm since 2010. In August 2013, the Compliance Division obtained a felony conviction against Ahmed Ghosien, d/b/a Ghosien European Auto Werks in Hometown. Ghosien pled guilty to a Class 4 felony for failing to obtain workers’ compensation insurance. The IWCC’s Insurance Compliance Unit worked with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Special Prosecutions Division to obtain the conviction. Again, the Insurance Compliance Unit had worked on the case since 2010. Both of these individuals were given many opportunities to obtain insurance before charges were filed, but they persistently refused, the IWCC said. |
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Where's the New Jersey Conference?
| There's going to be lots of press surrounding the latest CompScope Benchmarks Study released by the Workers' Compensation Research Institute, as there always is, and should be. After all, the WCRI is one of the top research groups in our industry and the leadership and staff there work hard to provide as complete and unbiased data as possible. What is unique about the latest study of 16 states is one common theme - controlling costs has more to do with instituting price schedules for medical services than any other single factor. The premier example is Illinois, which, after reducing medical fees by 30% across the board on Sept. 1, 2011, saw all medical payments for claims with seven days of lost time declined by 5% for injuries arising in 2011 and evaluated as of 2012. Prices paid for non-hospital services dropped by 24% between 2010 and 2012. And Texas' claim costs, which ranked the highest in the nation prior to a set of reforms passed in 2005, are now typical of the states studied, according to WCRI , with medical costs per claim 17% lower than the 16-state median for 2009 claims evaluated in 2012. The Institute expects costs to decline further in Texas with the prescription drug formulary that became effective 9/1/2011. The state's claim cost growth rate is also slowing. Claims costs in Texas grew by between 3% and 6% per year between 2006 and 2011. Costs per claim for the 2010/2012 study period were $5,829 – slightly higher than the $5,354 median. The flip side is... |
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Many Nursing Homes Operate Without Adequate Sprinkler Systems
A body was removed from the Greenwood Health Center in Hartford, Conn., after a fire in 2003.
Now and then, you learn something about caring for the elderly that stops you in your tracks. Like this: Until last month, federal regulations did not require all nursing homes to have automatic sprinkler systems. It’s a bit staggering, isn’t it? Automatic sprinklers, the most effective protection against fires, have been mandated in any new nursing home certified by Medicare and Medicaid, or in new construction added to an existing facility, since 2000. But for older nursing homes, there was no such regulation until August 2008 — and the industry, complaining about high costs, was given five years to comply. That deadline passed last month, but more than 1,100 older nursing homes still do not have sprinklers or have only “partial” systems, federal records show. Most of these places have some sprinklers — perhaps only in laundries and kitchens, perhaps in residents’ rooms but not hallways. What “partial” means in this context is unclear, a Medicare spokeswoman told me. But about 125 homes have no sprinklers, including 18 in Illinois, 16 in Texas and 13 in North Carolina. (You can see the list, though it may contain some reporting inaccuracies and may not reflect very recent changes.) A fire in a nursing home is a horrifying... |
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Questionable Workers Comp Claims Report: Fewer Claims and More Disputes
The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) today released an analysis of workers’ compensation (WC) questionable claims (QC) referrals submitted from Jan. 1, 2011, through June 30, 2013.
The report finds that while the total number of WC claims has been decreasing, the percentage that is deemed “questionable” has been rising. QCs are claims that NICB member insurance companies refer to NICB for closer review and investigation based on one or more indicators of possible fraud. A single claim may contain up to seven referral reasons. California ranked first generating a total of 2,270 WC QCs. It was followed by Illinois with 689. New York was third with 688. In 2011, 3,349,925 WC claims were found in the Insurance Services Office (ISO) ClaimSearch® database. That number decreased to 3,244,679 in 2012, and is on track to decrease again in 2013 based on the 1,498,725 claims received in the first half of 2013. In 2011, 3,474 WC QCs were referred to NICB. That number increased to 4,460 in 2012 — a 28 percent rise. WC QCs accounted for 3.5 percent of the 100,201 QCs submitted in 2011, and increased to 3.8 percent of the 116,171 QCs in 2012. Through the first half of 2013, 2,325 WC CQs have been referred to NICB (3.7 percent of 62,352 total QCs), compared with 1,681 through the first half of 2011 and 2,174 through the first half of 2013. The distribution of WC QCs follows a standard Monday–Friday workweek with... |
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Use Only as Directed
During the last decade, more than 1,500 Americans dieda fter accidentally taking too much of a drug renowned for its safety:acetaminophen, one of the nation’s most popular pain relievers.
Acetaminophen – the active ingredient in Tylenol– is considered safe when taken at recommended doses. Tens of millions of people use it weekly with no ill effect. But in larger amounts, especially in combination with alcohol, the drug can damage or even destroy the liver. Davy Baumle, a slender 12-year-oldwho loved to ride his dirt bike through the woods of southern Illinois, died from acetaminophen poisoning. So did tiny five-month-old Brianna Hutto. So did Marcus Trunk, a strapping 23-year-old construction worker from Philadelphia. The toll does not have to be so high. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has long been aware of studies showing the risks of acetaminophen – in particular, that the margin between the amount that helps and the amount that can cause serious harmis smaller than for other pain relievers. So, too, has McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the unit of Johnson & Johnson that has built Tylenol into a billion-dollar brand and the leader in acetaminophen sales. Yet federal regulators have delayed or failed to adopt measures designed to reduce deaths and injuries from acetaminophen overdose,which the agency calls a “persistent, important public health problem.” The FDA has repeatedly deferred decisions on consumer protection seven when they were... |
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Many States Look to Raise Minimum Wage
 New Jersey could become the fifth state this year to increase its state minimum wage if voters approve a measure on Nov. 5 that would boost the hourly rate by $1, to $8.25. In states as varied as Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts and South Dakota, advocates are pushing to put minimum wage hikes on state ballots in 2014. Meanwhile, elected officials are leading the charge in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia. The action at the state level comes as organized labor and liberal groups have backed a wave of strikes by fast-food workers in cities across the country to put a spotlight on hourly wages. Advocates are pressing for a national $15 hourly wage, more than twice the $7.25 federal minimum wage. States cannot set a minimum wage that is lower than the federal standard, but they are free to establish a higher one. Washington state currently has the highest state minimum wage at $9.19; followed by Oregon ($8.95) and Vermont ($8.60). Connecticut, the District of Columbia and Illinois all have a state minimum of $8.25. In addition, some 120 cities have enacted “living wages” that set a minimum standard for businesses that receive city contracts. City minimums range from $9 to $16 an hour. ... |
Related articles
- California minimum wage bill close to final passage (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Minimum wage in California to be $10 an hour (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Fast food workers strike to double current wages (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Tips and Poverty (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Labor, Then and Now (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Walmart CEO Mike Duke Pushes Back Against Company's Minimum Wage Reputation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Monday, September 16, 2013
State files charges against city business
The state Department of Labor & Industry on Friday filed criminal charges against a Wilkes-Barre business, alleging it failed to maintain worker's compensation insurance. Kus Tire Inc. at 10 Carey Ave. is charged with 100 felony counts of failing to procure worker's compensation insurance, court records say. A message left seeking comment at Kus Tire was not immediately returned. According to a criminal complaint, the business, headed by Bernard Kusakavitch, failed to have the insurance for 100 days - from Sept. 10, 2008, through Sept. 17, 2008, and again from Oct. 1, 2011, through Dec. 31, 2011. As a self-insured employer, the business was not exempt from possessing the coverage, the charges say. The complaint said an employee, Walter Booth Jr., was injured Sept. 12, 2008, and subsequently petitioned for benefits from the Uninsured Employers Guaranty Fund, which provides benefits to injured employees of uninsured employers. According to the complaint, Workers' Compensation Judge Joseph B. Sebastianelli awarded Booth benefits on May 31, 2011. Investigators filed a summons against the business Friday. The matter is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Rick Cronauer at 9 a.m. Oct. 31. jhalpin@citizensvoice.com comments powered by Disqus |
Related articles
- Report Recommends Raising Workers' Compensation Premiums (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- FL Workers' Compensation May Be Going Up (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Workers compensation hike on California employers proposed (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Cost Shifting vs. Cost Fixing (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Illinois: Employer Convicted of a Felony for Failure to Have Workers' Compensation Insurance (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Who Is Paying the Bills for Occupational Illnesses and Disease? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
Friday, September 6, 2013
Business Groups Call For More Changes To Workers' Compensation Laws
Despite a drop in the rate of workers' compensation insurance, Illinois businesses say the system is still too burdensome.
In 2011, Illinois changed its workers' compensation laws. The state Department of Insurance, the governor and others say the changes worked: the workers' comp insurance rate is down 4.5 percent. Kim Maisch is a lobbyist representing the state association for small, independent businesses. "We need to go a lot faster towards greater reform, and we certainly need to make sure the politicians know the job is not done," Maisch said.  Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Glen Carbon) says Illinois' rates are still too high. "We still are not competitive with the states around us with regard to reforming our workers' compensation system," Kay said. Kay says most of the savings comes from paying doctors less for treating injured workers, and he doesn't consider that "reform." He says Illinois needs to make employees prove an injury happened on the job before forcing a company to pay a settlement. But his proposed changes didn't gain any traction in the General Assembly. Unions have fought that change, saying a higher burden of proof is unfair to workers. Illinois Public Radio's Amanda Vinicky contributed to this report. |
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Illinois Punishes Workers for Employer Deceit
A campaign in Illinois by Industry to dismantle the State’s workers’ compensation system was triggered and flamed by a story appearing in a local newspaper asserting that several correction officers had filed fraudulent claims for repetitive motion trauma to their hands. The local news report insinuated that the claims could not have been credible.
The story, for some suspicious reason, was disseminated in a viral manner on the Internet. Concurrently, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce went on the attack claiming that the workers’ compensation system in Illinois was loaded with fraudulent activities. The Chamber and employers lobbied for legislation to strip injured workers of what little rights they still had under the law. The statutory changes they sponsored reduced ill workers access for benefits, reduced medical treatment expenditures by 30%, and set up a series of hurtles that left the injured without remedy to cure and relieve conditions caused by work.
Even that wasn’t enough. Supporters of the Industry’s draconian legislative effort, have now vowed to return to take away the basic promises granted workers a century ago, that injured workers could obtain the limited and capped scheduled benefits, under a no-fault system. The workers’ compensation system was intended to provide a remedial and expeditious benefit to injured workers in a summary and efficient fashion, without the element of fault being considered.
A hidden report reveals that Anthony E. Sudekum, MD, a Board Certified Hand Surgeon, retained by the employer, State of Illinois Department of Corrections, on March 30, 2011, after and extensive review of the facts, circumstances, inspection of the premises and equipment, and examination of the employees, concluded that, on the job activities contributed to their illness. He wrote, “…I feel that ….work activities at Menard Correctional center served to aggravate…bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome and left ulnar neuropathy.”
Furthermore, some contend that the neurological illnesses that appeared at the Menard Correctional Center may have been the result of a mysterious disease cluster that warrants much further investigation instead of a knee-jerk denial. Similarly, a mysterious outbreak of disease in Philadelphia ultimately resulted in the discovery of Legionnaires Disease. Today the US Centers for Disease Control continues to investigate worldwide clusters of gastro-intestinal conditions to determine their potential causal relationship. It is through continued medical research and investigation that we make the workplace healthier, safer and more productive.
We should learn from history. In the past, employers and manufacturers were also caught intentionally concealing the hazards of asbestos, tobacco and lead paint. That left a legacy of disease and death, and billions of dollars of economic loss. One would think that everyone learned from those tragic mistakes. For our nation to survive, employers must take an active roll in improving the health of our workers, and build a stronger system, rather than just deny the hazards of the workplace and blame the injured.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Illinois Workers Compensation - It is time for a "Do Not Resuscitate" Order
It is ironic that one of the leading states in workers' compensation, Illinois, is about to watch the system implode. It was a predictable event. Employers created and manipulated the system for their own interests for years by taking away more and more of the rights of injured workers.
Industry has literally chopped the system to death through their reform efforts. Now they want to put fault into a system whose foundation was built upon none. Employers can no longer shield themselves from the medical expenses of the big-ticket items like the costs of medical expenses for the last year of life, especially in occupational disease situations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) has caught them with their pants down by the legislatively invoked mandatory reporting statute under the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP). The occupational disease claims that the insurance companies have played hide and seek with for years now are haunting them.
The great Ponzi scheme, workers' compensation, that Industry created to handle occupational injuries in an assembly-line process, is now crashing. There is no economic base upon which to support workers' compensation programs into the future. Like Elvis, the Industrial sector has "left the building." Unemployment has continued in such high numbers, for so long, that union welfare funds are totally depleted as their members sit idle in union halls hungry for work and go bare for health insurance coverage. US corporations have moved both their operations and headquarters to greener pastures, overseas, leaving this country with a legacy of industrial waste, both environmental and human.
The next step will be what is already in the works. Both liberals and conservatives have endorsed a national health plan. Prototypes are emerging on both the State and Federal levels. The question will be how to fund them. Such plans will cover medical care for injured workers without delay and costly administrative issues. Giving employees access to the civil justice system, and allowing recoveries against employers who fail to maintain safe industrial environments will ultimately solve the need for adequate compensation. A real economic incentive will then be established for employers to make the workplace safer instead of merely ignoring safety rules and regulations and looking for cover under a low cost workers' compensation insurance policy.
The remaining crumbs of the workers' compensation systems that remain in the country are now being exploited by a cottage industry of economic vultures that are attempting to abuse and game the system for their own benefit. The third party vendors that hawk medical programs and pharmaceuticals for insurance carriers, and lien/claim resolution companies, are the only ones who are going to benefit from what remains. They are hacking up the system like the New England whalers of the Northeast who hunted down and decimated sperm whales, and sliced up their corpses to extract the oil for industrial lubricants and fuel, and then rendered the chopped up blubber for oil products.
What is happening in Illinois to the workers' compensation system, is that the system is being slashed to death and rendered inoperable. It is a national issue. Those who realize that it is too late to save the system have invoked a "Do Not Resuscitate" (DNR) order. It is time to come to the realization that the workers' compensation program no longer has a quality of life to maintain the noble aspirations of its crafters. May it rest in peace.
Related articles
Friday, April 8, 2011
Illinois Workers Compensation Maybe Heading for Extinction
Representative John Bradley (D-Marion) said, "Let's give the courts a chance. Let's try something else. Because we know what we've been doing isn't working,"
Read the Article in the Chicago Tribune: http://tinyurl.com/3nk2cx6
Friday, April 1, 2011
Federal Probe Launched Into Illinois Workers Compensation System
Federal investigators have reportedly launched a wide scale investigation into the Illinois workers' compensation system after millions of dollars of questionable claims and practices have been reported by arbitrators. Subpoenas have been issued for e-mails and other records from arbitrators by the U.S. Attorney for the central district of Illinois.
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