The New York State Workers’ Compensation Board recently announced it will transition the management of established Uninsured Employers’ Fund (UEF) claims to the Triad Group, LLC effective Jan. 13, 2014.
Triad Group, based in Troy, N.Y., is a professional service organization providing comprehensive claims management. These claims consist of established claims where liability has been determined, and medical, and/or indemnity payments must be made. Triad will perform all claim-related functions and legal representation. Claimants who have such UEF claims, and all parties of interest, including health care providers and legal representatives, will receive individual written notice of the change in claim administrator. The Workers’ Compensation Board said the transition of claim management should have no impact on claimants receiving workers’ comp benefits. Claimants who are receiving biweekly indemnity benefits will continue receiving benefits on the same schedule currently in place. For medical and transportation reimbursement requests after Jan. 13, 2014, Form C-257, Claimant’s Record of Medical and Travel Expenses and Request for Reimbursement, must be sent to Triad for processing with a copy to the Workers’ Compensation Board. For medical services provided on or after Jan. 13, 2014, in established cases only, health care providers should send new medical reports, bills and authorization requests to Triad, and a copy to the... [Click here to see the rest of this post] |
Temporary workers are a major issue for safety regulations. Today's post is shared from probulica.org
 A version of this story was produced by Univision and will air tonight at 6:30 p.m. JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – This was it, he told his brother Jojo. He would finally be able to pay his mother back for the fender bender, buy some new shoes and, if things went well, maybe even start a life with his fiancee who was living in Atlanta. After getting his high school diploma, completing federal job training and sending out dozens of applications, Day Davis, 21, got a job. It was through a temp agency and didn’t pay very much, but he would be working at the Bacardi bottling plant, making the best-selling rum in the world. Davis called his mother to tell her the good news and ask if she could pick him up so he could buy the required steel-toe boots, white shirt and khaki pants and get to the factory for a 15-minute orientation before his 3 p.m. shift. Word spread quickly through the family. “Me and my brother was like, ‘Don’t mess up now, you got to do good, don’t mess up,’ ” said his younger sister, Nia. It was a humid 90 degrees as Davis walked into Bacardi’s Warehouse No. 7 to the rattle of glass bottles,... |
 |
| FL New Case Filings Decrease |
| ALEC has endorsed workers' compensation as program to shield corporate liability. " NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the State of (insert state) specifically reaffirms the principle of workers’ compensation as the exclusive remedy and rejects the rationale for tort liability based on legal theories such as dual capacity/dual persona, intentional injury without proof that the employer acted with deliberate intention to cause the injury, or third party action against employers for work-related injuries." Today's post is shared from NPR.org . A batch of internal documents recently leaked to The Guardian has revealed new insights into the goals and finances of the secretive group called ALEC. The American Legislative Exchange Council is a group that brings together state legislators and representatives of corporations. Together, they develop model bills that lawmakers introduce and try to pass in their state legislatures. Through these model bills, ALEC has worked to privatize public education, cut taxes, reduce public employee compensation, oppose Obamacare and resist state regulations to reduce global warming gas emissions. "ALEC is like an incubator of predominantly conservative legislation," Guardian correspondent Ed Pilkington tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "The vast majority of the model bills are conservative in their... |
There are so many reasons why both employers and workers feel that workers' compensation is "broken" or doesn't work.
Peter Rousmaniere, who is beginning work this week for WorkCompCentral, suggests in his column reviewing two studies on perceived delays in medical treatment that delay may arise as much from indifferent doctoring skills as days elapsing on the calendar. An employer consultant relayed to me a factual scenario indicating another cause of this perception - standard claims administration protocol, which is defensive in nature as opposed to being aggressively pro-active. Rousmaniere cites a couple of studies in his column. A Texas Department of Workers' Compensation survey of injured workers documents wide discrepancy in perceptions, but also notes that up to 50% of all survey respondents complained of some delay in receipt of treatment. Another study cited by Rousmaniere conducted by Harbor Health, which specializes in designing workers’ compensation provider networks, looked for differences in claims outcome, including medical cost and litigation rates, and if surgical treatment happened early or late in the course of treatment. Harbor Health found that early surgery in carpal tunnel cases (earlier than recommended by treatment guidelines) produced slightly more cost in medical expense but much less cost in indemnity expense. Let's put these findings into context. Assume a 28 year old male worker who complains of "... |
New York state's Workers' Compensation Board has started a sweeping effort to examine the system, and look at how it could more effectively meet the needs of injured workers and employers. It's in the midst of holding sessions where injured workers can express their opinions.
The second of three sessions was held yesterday in Syracuse, and allowed injured workers to chime in on the discussion in central New York. Fidel, Alejandro Velacqueis Perez was among those telling stories. His ankle was shattered on the job at a stone cutting company in Delaware County. While waiting four months for a Workers' Compensation hearing, he's basically homeless. "I need help," Perez said. "I don't have any resources. I don't have money to buy food. I don't have money to get a phone and reach my family." Interpreting for Perez is Rebecca Fuentes of the Workers Center of Central New York. She says immigrant voices especially need to be heard, but part of the problem is that many don't even know Workers' Compensation exists. An answer to that would be more outreach from the agency. "People in this building need to get out," Fuentes said. "We want to see them out at events, tabling. We need to see them everywhere. Because workers are getting injured, and they're not having equal access to this right." Fuentes says among other things, some immigrants lose their jobs after an injury because they apply for Workers' Compensation. She says it is a serious issue that the Workers' Compensation Board... |
On November 25, Fox News put it best: “Obamacare Policies Slam Smokers,” , noting that “smokers are the only group with a pre-existing condition that Obamacare penalizes.” THCB itself has headlined: Smokers Face Tough New Rules under Obamacare.
And these headlines are absolutely accurate — meaning that, with the possible exception of the e-cigarette, ACA is the best thing that has happened to employed smokers ever.
Here is how we arrive at this conclusion. The data is mixed on whether smokers incur much higher healthcare costs or just slightly higher healthcare costs during their working ages than non-smokers do. None of the data shows that their costs are lower, but let’s say there is no impact on health spending.
Nonetheless, the following is incontrovertible: smokers take smoking breaks.Remarkably, there are no laws specifically governing smoking breaks, and like most other quantifiable human resources issues, no one has quantified them. But we all observe these breaks, and about a fifth of us participate in them. They reduce productivity. By definition, if you are outside smoking, you are not inside... |
| Medical delivery costs continue to soar and workers' compensation claims costs are running out of ontrol. Cost for emergency medicare are not usually regulated by workers' compensation prorams, eve where balance cillig is removed from the equation. Todays post is shared from the NYTimes.org With blood oozing from deep lacerations, the two patients arrived at California Pacific Medical Center’s tidy emergency room. Deepika Singh, 26, had gashed her knee at a backyard barbecue. Orla Roche, a rambunctious toddler on vacation with her family, had tumbled from a couch, splitting open her forehead on a table.  On a quiet Saturday in May, nurses in blue scrubs quickly ushered the two patients into treatment rooms. The wounds were cleaned, numbed and mended in under an hour. “It was great — they had good DVDs, the staff couldn’t have been nicer,” said Emer Duffy, Orla’s mother. Then the bills arrived. Ms. Singh’s three stitches cost $2,229.11. Orla’s forehead was sealed with a dab of skin glue for $1,696. “When I first saw the charge, I said, ‘What could possibly have cost that much?’ ” recalled Ms. Singh. “They billed for everything, every pill.” In a medical system notorious for opaque finances and inflated bills, nothing is more convoluted than hospital pricing, economists say. Hospital charges represent about a third of the $2.7 trillion annual United States health care... |
