Workers' Compensation

Friday, October 10, 2014

Why are more Latinos dying on the job again?

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

Abdón Urrutia remembers the impact. He was 16 feet off the ground on a commercial office construction project in Tysons Corner, tied in with a harness, stripping the metal molds used to pour concrete off the walls after they had set. Suddenly, one of the molds tipped over into his back, knocking him against protruding rebar and a wooden handrail. He yelled out in pain, and his brother rushed over to help him to the ground, as his legs started getting numb.
“I was laying down on the floor for two hours trying to figure out how to get up,” recalled Urrutia, 23, nearly six months after the accident.
According to Urrutia’s account of the story — which three colleagues, including his brother, corroborated in affidavits prepared by a labor union — what followed was a stark reminder of the risks, to health and life, that Latinos are disproportionately exposed to in the workplace. Latinos still make up a much larger portion of workers in dangerous jobs like construction, and haven’t benefited as much from the economy-wide changes that have made the workplace safer for for everyone else.
The most glaring sign of the problem, experts say, is the worker fatality rate: The overall number of on the job-deaths reached an all-time low of 3.2 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2013, while the Latino rate inched up again to 3.8 from 3.7.
On the day of his injury, after Urrutia lifted himself up the floor, he says, the staff at the company where he...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Tembow

Minimum Wage and Overtime Protections Are Delayed for Home-Care Workers

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

With numerous states pushing for a delay, the Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would put off enforcement of its plan to extend minimum-wage and overtime protections to the nation’s nearly two million home-care workers.
A year ago, the Labor Department announced that the wage protections would take effect nationwide Jan. 1, 2015, but the department said Tuesday that it would not enforce the rule for six months — from Jan. 1 to June 30. For the second six months of the year, the department said, it would “exercise its discretion” in whether to bring enforcement actions against any employers that decline to pay minimum wage or overtime.
Under the new rule, home-care workers would have to receive the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and time and a half when they work more than 40 hours a week. Numerous states, already facing budget strains, complained to the Obama administration about the cost.
Fifteen states have state minimum wage and overtime protections for home-care workers; six others and the District of Columbia require that they receive at least the minimum wage.
In announcing the rule in September 2013, Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said, “Almost two million home-care workers are doing critical work, providing services to people with disabilities and senior citizens,” yet they are “lumped into the same category as babysitters.”
The new rule ends a 40-year-old exemption from federal wage laws that treated...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Tembow

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Turning 65? 9 Tips For Signing Up For Medicare

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from www.kaiserhealthnews.org

This KHN story also ran in . It can be republished for free. (details)
“Welcome to America's hottest talk line. Ladies, to talk to interesting and exciting guys free, press 1 now. Guys, hot ladies are waiting to talk to you . . . ."
Wait! I thought I was calling Social Security to ask a question about enrolling in Medicare.

It's the first hour of my mission to sign up for Medicare and already I'm making mistakes. In this case, it's minor (and amusing), misdialing the toll-free number by one digit. But it serves as a warning: There are many missteps I can make, some of them serious, if I'm not careful.
Even for me, a consumer reporter who has written about health-insurance issues, enrolling in Medicare is a daunting task. The terminology is confusing and the options are seemingly infinite, based on the amount of promotional material that's begun arriving in my mailbox. The letters from various insurance carriers began appearing exactly six months before my 65th birthday and after three months they weighed 1.5 pounds. More packets arrive daily. Medicare experts tell me I can thank the data brokers for the onslaught: Names and birth dates are for sale to anyone.
Enrolling is a task I'd like to put off, but I can't. I no longer have job-based insurance, and my current health insurer has notified me that my policy will soon expire, on the first of the month in which I turn 65.
I know that the decisions I make may differ from those made by friends, relatives and even my...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Government Investigates 938,000 Ford Sedans for Steering Problem

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.nytimes.com

After the Ford Motor Company recalled about 1.1 million vehicles this year for power steering failures, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the same problem on another 938,000 cars.
The safety agency is investigating whether a recall is necessary on Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ sedans from the 2010-12 model years and Mercury Milan sedans from the 2010 and 2011 model years, according to a report posted Monday on the agency’s website.

N.H.T.S.A. says it has received 508 complaints from owners, including four reports of accidents that occurred when the power steering assist suddenly failed, requiring “increased steering efforts that contributed to a loss of control and crash.” No injuries were noted. The complaints go back to 2010 and include many reports of close calls.
“As the vehicle was attempted to be turned right into driveway the power steering completely failed and the driver nearly hit another vehicle,” one owner wrote the safety agency in August 2013. “Every bit of the 120-pound female driver’s strength was needed to manually steer the vehicle into the parking lot.”
The owner also said that the repair cost $1,600.
Last year, Ford recalled nearly 1.2 million vehicles in the United States. So far this year, Ford has recalled about 3.9 million vehicles. That includes two recalls in May for sudden power steering assist failures. The largest action, which covered about 915,000 Ford Escape and...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

….

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Tembow

Medicare Revises Nursing Home Rating System

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.nytimes.com

The federal government on Monday announced substantial changes to the government’s five-star rating program for nursing homes, a widely used consumer tool that has been criticized for its reliance on self-reported, unverified data.
The five-star rating system has become the gold standard for evaluating the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes since it was put in place five years ago, even though two of the major criteria used to rate the facilities — staffing levels and quality statistics — are reported by the nursing homes themselves and generally are not audited by the federal government.
On Monday, officials said they would make several changes, starting in January, aimed at addressing some of these concerns.
Nursing homes will have to begin reporting their staffing levels quarterly using an electronic system that can be verified with payroll data. And officials will initiate a nationwide auditing program aimed at checking whether the so-called quality measures rating — which is based on information collected about every patient — is accurate.
Beginning in January, nursing homes’ ratings will also be based partly on the percentage of its residents being given antipsychotic drugs.
In August, The New York Times reported that the rating system relied so heavily on unverified and incomplete information that even homes with a documented history of quality problems were earning top ratings. The number of homes with above-average ratings...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Wages should be growing faster, but they’re not. Here’s why.

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

When it comes to stagnant wage trends, I yield to no one (except maybe the Economic Policy Institute’s Larry Mishel) in my efforts to elevate the issue and tie it to deep-seeded structural changes that have been zapping worker bargaining power for decades. I’ve tried to be particularly vigilant in ringing this lack-of-real-wage-growth alarm bell in recent months, as the tightening job market has led to threatening chatter about the need for the Federal Reserve to ratchet up rates sooner than later.
So when I tell you I’m a little surprised to see almost no movement in wage growth despite the improving employment situation, I hope you’ll give me a listen. To be clear, that’s “a little surprised.” There’s still considerable slack in the job market, and, like I said, workers’ ability to bargain for a bigger slice of the pie has taken a real beating over the years.
But given the extent to which the job market has tightened up in recent months, I would expect a bit more wage pressure than I’ve seen (“tightening,” “improving,” “less slack” are all econo-mese for stronger labor demand leading to faster job growth and lower unemployment). So let’s look at the evidence for these claims and think about why the wage dog is not barking. While I offer a number of credible hypotheses, the one I favor is pretty straightforward: Raising pay is simply not part of the business model of...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

US officials expected to announce Ebola screening at airports

Employees at airports have a new problem to be worried about: Ebola. Today's post is shared from cidrap.umn.edu/
Federal officials are finalizing details on Ebola screening steps for travelers arriving at US airports, which may be announced in a few days and may resemble the kinds of questions that outbreak countries are asking departing passengers, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, said today.

The risk of another travel-linked Ebola case, such as the one in Texas, can never be reduced to zero until West Africa's outbreak is extinguished, he said at a media telebriefing today. But he said the CDC and other government agencies are taking a hard look at additional steps, focusing on ones that won't hamstring the response process underway overseas.
The three main outbreak countries have so far screened about 36,000 people departing on airlines, with three fourths of them bound for destinations outside the United States. The CDC has trained airport screeners in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, which have flagged 77 people with fever and 3 people with other symptoms. As far as the CDC knows, none of the people with fever had Ebola, and most had malaria, a common illness in that part the world, Frieden said.
"I can assure you we will take additional steps, and the details will be worked out and announced in a few days," he added.

Senator suggests screening steps

US Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., issued a statement today saying he spoke with Frieden about tougher screening at US airports and is pleased that the CDC is preparing to...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Ebola lawsuits would face high hurdles in Texas

Today's post is shared from reuters.com/
Potential suits against the Dallas, Texas hospital that sent home a patient later diagnosed with Ebola face long odds in the face of state medical malpractice laws.
Texas tort-reform measures have made it one of the hardest places in the United States to sue over medical errors, especially those that occurred in the emergency room, according to plaintiffs’ lawyers and legal experts.
“It’s one of the highest legal burdens of any state in the country,” said Joanne Doroshow, executive director of New York Law School’s Center for Justice and Democracy, who studies U.S. tort law.

A general view of the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in seen in Dallas, Texas, October 4, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Young

Although it appears no lawsuits have been filed in connection with the case, possible legal claims could be brought by Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan or his family, anyone he may have exposed to the disease, or hospital workers put at risk.
Duncan, now in critical condition, first visited Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital’s emergency room late at night on Sept. 25. Duncan told a nurse he had just returned from Liberia, where the disease is raging, but he was sent home with antibiotics. On Sunday, Sept. 28, he was admitted after his symptoms became worse, becoming the first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
Texas Governor Rick Perry on Monday said that there had been "mistakes" handling the Ebola diagnosis, the latest in a series of officials and health experts questioning the initial response.
The hospital on Friday...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Canceled Health Plans: Round Two

Today's post was shared by Kaiser Health News and comes from www.kaiserhealthnews.org

Thousands of consumers who were granted a reprieve to keep insurance plans that don’t meet the federal health law’s standards are now learning those plans will be discontinued at year’s end, and they’ll have to choose a new policy, which may cost more.

Cancellations are in the mail to customers from Texas to Alaska in markets where insurers say the policies no longer make business sense. In some states, such as Maryland and Virginia, rules call for the plans’ discontinuations, but in many, federal rules allow the policies to continue into 2017.
Insurers sending the notices to some customers include Anthem, one of the largest insurers in the country, Baltimore-based CareFirst, Health Care Services Corporation in Chicago, Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., Humana in Louisville, Ky., and Golden Rule, an Indianapolis subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
One reason behind the switch is that insurers determined they can make more money selling plans that comply with the Affordable Care Act, often at higher premiums that may be subsidized by the government.
“They’re getting a lot more revenue, often for the same person,” said consultant Robert Laszewski, a former insurance executive.
Last year, similar cancellation letters sent to more than 2 million customers created a political firestorm for President Barack Obama, who had repeatedly...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Work Comp and Baseball

Today's post was shared by WorkCompCentral and comes from daviddepaolo.blogspot.com

I was watching the Oakland As versus the Kansas City Royals game on television the other night. Kansas City tied up the game and I went to bed so I could write this blog in the morning and good thing - the game remained tied until the 12th inning where the Royals scored the winning hit at the bottom of the inning, far past my bedtime.
The player securing the win for the Royals, Salvador Perez, had six at bats but didn't hit anything until his last when he knocked in a single. In fact, his prior at bat he whiffed so bad even I could tell the pitch was WAY outside the zone.
My buddy, a baseball aficionado, explained to me the next day, "Baseball is a game based on failure. A great hitter hits .300. He fails seven out of every ten attempts."
The odds are so great against the batter in baseball that hitting a pitch less than a third of the time is considered "great."
Sometimes it seems that workers' compensation is like a batter in baseball - the odds of a positive outcome seem so enormous that when one occurs it's "great."
Workers' compensation, like baseball, requires a big team. There's the sale, i.e. brokers. There's policy underwriting and administration - people that consider the risks and price coverage accordingly. There's the employer, which precipitates work comp in the first place. Doctors are needed to treat; attorneys bring and manage disputes. Claims administrators are necessary to keep the claim moving. There are a whole host of other...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

For most chronic pain, neurologists declare opioids a bad choice

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.latimes.com

Patients taking opioid painkillers for chronic pain not associated with cancer -- conditions such as headaches, fibromyalgia and low-back pain -- are more likely to risk overdose, addiction and a range of debilitating side effects than they are to improve their ability to function, a leading physicians group declared Wednesday.

The long-term use of opioids may not, in the net, be beneficial even in patients with more severe pain conditions, including sickle-cell disease, destructive rheumatoid arthritis and severe neuropathic pain, the American Academy of Neurologists opined in a new position statement released Wednesday.

But even for patients who do appear to benefit from opioid narcotics, the neurology group warned, physicians who prescribe these drugs should be diligent in tracking a patient's dose increases, screening for a history of depression or substance abuse, looking for signs of misuse and insisting as a condition of continued use that opioids are improving a patient's function.

In disseminating a new position paper on opioid painkillers for chronic non-cancer pain, the American Academy of Neurology is hardly the first physicians group to sound the alarm on these medications and call for greater restraint in prescribing them.

But it appears to be the first to lay out a comprehensive set of research-based guidelines that...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Foster Farms outbreak sparks legal petition to outlaw dangerous pathogens

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

Although hundreds of Americans were hospitalized over the past two years with salmonella poisoning linked to Foster Farms chickens, the U.S. Agriculture Department said it had no power to order a recall on the contaminated poultry.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest took steps Wednesday to change that. The Washington-based group filed a petition with the USDA, outlining legal arguments for a ban on four of the most dangerous strains of salmonella.

The strains are all resistant to multiple classes of the most commonly used antibiotics, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

In its petition, the consumer group included its own analysis that showed 2,358 illnesses, 424 hospitalization and eight deaths have been linked to antibiotic-resistant salmonella strains found in meat and chicken. Most of the cases are from the mid 1990s to present.

In its announcement, the group said findings of their analysis “obligates USDA to keep those strains out of the food supply.”

Salmonella Heidelberg — which the CDC linked to the Foster Farms outbreak — is one of the strains that CSPI is seeking to ban.

The Foster Farms outbreak lasted for more than 15 months, and CDC did not declare it to be over until late July. The agency also said the outbreak sickened at least 638 people, with nearly 40 percent requiring hospitalization. The company has made a number of changes in its plants over the past year and says that, over the past several months, the rate...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

The Economy: German Industrial Output Drops

The economy drives workers' compensation premiums and benefits. Revenue is the blood of the system. Predicting the future is problematic. Several recent news items are indicators of a ponzi scheme: the US wages remain down even though employment supposedly is pre-election and the stable of the European economy is fracturing in Germany. Lower US gas prices signal low demand internationally for petroleum. If the US economy slips yet again, event though interest rates are low and the US Government keeps printing money, the workers' compensation insurance industry maybe headed for big economic trouble. How much more can you trim from the benefit system and still say that it works as efficiently and effectively? Today's post is share from wsj.com/

German industrial output declined sharply in August, data from the country’s economy ministry showed Tuesday, raising fears that German growth in the third quarter will be minimal, if at all.
The figures, the second piece of downbeat economic data from Europe’s largest economy in as many days, showed that factory output in adjusted terms fell 4% on the month—the sharpest decline since 2009.
The fall was well below analysts’ expectations of a 1.5% decline, according to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal.
Germany’s economy ministry also reduced its July figure to growth of 1.6% from the 1.9% gain originally reported.
The data came a day after a surprise decline of 5.7% in manufacturing orders for August—also the sharpest since January 2009, when the world was mired in financial crisis. Though orders data don’t translate immediately into production numbers, Monday’s data release amplified concerns about Germany’s growth outlook.
The German economy is “likely to have stagnated at best,” in the third quarter, said Ralph Solveen, an economist at Commerzbank. Following a 0.6% annualized decline in the second quarter, a contraction in the third quarter would meet a common definition for a recession, namely two consecutive quarters of economic decline.
Tuesday’s data were weak across the board, with manufacturing output down 4.8% and construction output down 2.0%. Energy output eked out a...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Who Are ‘We the People’?

Workers' Compensation dependency benefits were just modified by the US Supreme. In making the decision not to review its decision about same sex marriage, statutes conytaining the word "spouse" now have a new definition. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

Who is a person? How do you qualify for basic human rights? What is required for you to be able to speak or worship freely or to be free from torture?
Throughout American history, the Supreme Court has considered and reconsidered the criteria for membership in the club of rights, oscillating between a vision limiting rights to preferred groups and another granting rights to all who require protection. These competing visions have led to some strange results.

Corporations (as well as unions) can spend on political speech to further their group interests as though they were individual political actors. Corporations can assert religious rights to gain legal exemptions from laws that would otherwise apply to them. Muslim detainees at Guantánamo Bay, however, have none of these rights.
As a corporate litigator who has also spent more than a decade defending Guantánamo detainees, I have been trying to figure out why corporations are worthy of court protection and Muslims held in indefinite detention without trial by the United States at a naval base in Cuba are not.
The direction of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. over the past decade has been anything but consistent. As the court readies itself for another term, it may not be possible to speak of a Roberts court jurisprudence at all. Even within the conservative and liberal blocs there are a range of views on the limits of executive power, the relationship between the federal government and...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Over Medicating Workers' Compensation Patients

When is it too much? That is the big question. Easy access to medication may also be a major problem. Today' s post is shared from nytimes.com\

A huge number of patients suffer from adverse medication issues that complicate workers' compensation claims even further. New data indicates that over medication of patients even complicates the issues further.
The most common cause of fatal allergic reactions in the United States are medicines, especially antibiotics and radiocontrast agents used in imaging studies, a new analysis found.
Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, researchers found 2,458 cases of fatal anaphylaxis from 1999 through 2010. Almost 60 percent of the deaths, or 1,446, were caused by reactions to drugs, and in cases where the specific drug was known, half were caused by antibiotics. The rate of drug-induced fatal reactions almost doubled over the period.
Insect stings caused 15.2 percent of the fatalities and food 6.7 percent. The cause was not recorded in a fifth of the cases.
The study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, also found that older age was associated with a higher risk for death and that blacks had a higher risk of dying from drugs and food reactions. For insect sting deaths, rates among whites were almost three times as high as rates among African-Americans.
The lead author, Dr. Elina Jerschow, an assistant professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, said that part of the increase in drug-induced allergic deaths is probably due to changes in the way deaths are coded on death certificates. But, she added, “We are using more imaging studies than other countries, and they’re potentially life-threatening. After antibiotics, radiocontrast was the chief culprit.”
A version of this article appears in...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Monday, October 6, 2014

Ebola: An 18% Chance Became 100% Last Week

Infections diseases are a living nightmare for all, including workers, employers and their insurance carriers. An 18% change of Ebola entering the US, quickly changed to 100% last week. Is the US doing ALL it can to prevent this contagious disease?

The White House announced this afternoon that precautions were being taken. Is that enough?

Is the White House press statement issued this afternoon.

GM recalls 117,000 vehicles

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.clickondetroit.com

Reuters

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -

General Motors is recalling 117,000 vehicles for an issue that could cause the vehicle to stall or not start.

GM said that it is aware of no crashes, injuries or fatalities connected to the problem.

The issue affects a small number -- about 1% -- of the 117,000 cars and trucks, GM said.

The chassis control module -- a part of the vehicle's electronics system linked to the braking, steering, and suspension -- could be short-circuited by small metal fragments. If this happens, drivers may see a warning, such as the check engine light, turn on. Also the vehicle may stall.

This year, GM has recalled an unprecedented number of vehicles. After disclosing a fatal ignition switch flaw that went unreported for a decade, GM scrutinized its older vehicles for possible issues and issued over 60 recalls. Not counting Thursday's announcement, the automaker has recalled 29.4 million vehicles in 2014.

Thursday's recalled models are:

-- 2013-2014 Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban.

--2013-2014 Cadillac CTS.

--2013-2014 GMC Yukon and Yukon XL.

--2013-2014 Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV.

--2014 Chevrolet Traverse.

--2014 GMC Acadia.

--2014 Buick Enclave

--2014 Chevrolet Express.

--2014 GMC Savana.

--2014 Chevrolet Silverado HD.

-- 2014 GMC Sierra HD.

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Cellphone Boom Spurs Antenna-Safety Worries

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from online.wsj.com

Radio-frequency engineer Marvin Wessel has taken readings at more than 3,000 cellphone antenna sites across the country. Ryan Knutson
The antennas fueling the nation’s cellphone boom are challenging federal safety rules that were put in place when signals largely radiated from remote towers off-limits to the public.
Now, antennas are in more than 300,000 locations—rooftops, parks, stadiums—nearly double the number of 10 years ago, according to the industry trade group CTIA.
Federal rules require carriers to use barricades, signs and training to protect people from excessive radio-frequency radiation, the waves of electric and magnetic power that carry signals. The power isn’t considered harmful by the time it reaches the street, but it can be a risk for workers and residents standing directly in front of an antenna.
One in 10 sites violates the rules, according to six engineers who examined more than 5,000 sites during safety audits for carriers and local municipalities, underscoring a safety lapse in the network that makes cellphones hum, at a time when the health effects of antennas are being debated world-wide.
The FCC has issued just two citations to cell carriers since adopting the rules in 1996. The FCC says it lacks resources to monitor each antenna.
“It’s like having a speed limit and no police,” said Marvin Wessel, an engineer who has audited more than 3,000 sites and found one in 10 out of compliance.
On a sweltering June day in...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Tembow

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)