Workers’ Compensation Is About Relationships

Today's post comes from guest author Ryan Benharris (MA) from Deborah G. Kohl Law Offices.

Prevention of accidents should be the first step in establishing a successful workers’ compensation system. If an employer were truly concerned about the health and safety of the employee there would be no need for workers’ compensation.

Unfortunately the profit motive of the employer sometimes corrupts the process, and shortcuts are taken at work to increase production at an anticipated lower cost to the employer.

Employers need to understand that the human and financial costs of industrial accidents and exposures can be devastating. Injured workers, through the workers’ compensation process, may seek the payment of medical benefits, lost time payments and permanent disability awards. 

Hopefully, the relationship between employees and employers can improve, and the workplace can become a safer environment.
....

Jon L.Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 3 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.

More About Workers' Compensation and Medical Benefits

National Analysis of Workers Compensation Medical Benefits

Jul 30, 2011

The just published, Issue 3 of the Workers' Compensation Resources Research Report (WCRRR) provides 23 years of information on cash benefits, medical benefits, and total (cash plus medical) benefits per 100,000 workers ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Health Benefits, US Supreme Court and ...

Mar 21, 2012

The implementation of the Act will ultimately have far reaching consequences of the overall operation of both the delivery of workers' compensation medical benefits and the ultimate assessment/apportionment of permanent ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation Medical Benefits are in Critical Condition

Nov 13, 2008

Now that Barach Obama is a going to be at the helm of the US, greater attention is being focused on the need for a national health care system incorporating workers' compensation medical coverage. With private insurance ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Pensions, Workers Compensation and Medical Benefits

Aug 29, 2011

The medical issue remains open usually and medical benefits remain the responsibility of the employer. The medical issue becomes a complication when costs are attempted to be shifted to collateral medical carriers or ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Related articles

• Why Doctors Prescribe Opioids to Known Opioid Abusers - NEJM
• NJ Workers Compensation Court Disrupted by Storm
• $85 Million Verdict Against KBR for Negligently Exposing Soldiers to Toxins in Iraq
• Employee Termination Because of Facebook Comment Does Not End Workers' Compensation Benefits

Rescinding the Cuts to Veteran's Pensions Was In the Cards From the Start

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

December's budget deal between Paul Ryan and Patty Murray included a bit of relief from the 2011 sequestration cuts, with the relief split evenly between domestic and military budgets. That even split was one of the guiding principles of the deal. But part of the military relief was paid for by $7 billion in cuts to veterans' pensions, something that immediately prompted a storm of protest and, eventually, a move to rescind the cuts. Jared Bernstein comments: True, that’s not huge bucks in the scheme of things. But the violation of this budget principle should not be taken lightly. A key point of the budget machinations that brought us to where we are today is that automatic spending cuts should be split between evenly between defense and non-defense (forget for a moment, that it’s not the discretionary side of the budget that’s responsible for our longer term fiscal challenges anyway). If Congress starts stealing from domestic programs to boost defense, it will unfairly and unwisely exacerbate already unsustainable pressures on domestic spending. I'd take a slightly different lesson from this: Democrats got snookered. Only a little bit, and they knew they were being played, but they still got snookered. It was obvious from the start that cuts to veterans' benefits would be unpopular and unlikely to stand, but Democrats agreed to them anyway in order to get the budget deal across the finish line. Maybe that was the right thing to do, but it was no...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• In Detroit Ruling, Threats to Promises and Assumptions (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Government Shutdown (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• My Next Move for Veterans is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan battle lung trouble upon return home (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Police Salaries and Pensions Push California City to Brink (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Breast Cancer Linked to Workers' Exposure at Semiconductor Factory

A semiconductor plant worker, who had been exposed to solvents and radiation while working 5 years at a semiconductor factory in South Korea has been held to have suffered an compensable disease related to her exposure at work. The 36 year old women was employed between 1995 and 2000 at plant. Three years after contracting breast cancer she died. Workers' Compensation benefits were awarded.

Recent studies have associated exposure to solvents as an increased risk factor for breast cancer.

"Endocrine disrupting chemicals and carcinogens, some of which may not yet have been classified as such, are present in many occupational environments and could increase breast cancer risk. Prior research has identified associations with breast cancer and work in agricultural and industrial settings. The purpose of this study was to further characterize possible links between breast cancer risk and occupation, particularly in farming and manufacturing, as well as to examine the impacts of early agricultural exposures, and exposure effects that are specific to the endocrine receptor status of tumours."

Breast cancer risk in relation to occupations with exposure to carcinogens and endocrine disruptors: a Canadian case--control study
Environmental Health 2012, 11:87 doi:10.1186/1476-069X-11-87 Published: 19 November 2012

Read more about "Breast Cancer" and occupational exposures:

Workers' Compensation: Breast Cancer and the Environment: A Life ...

Dec 05, 2012

Susan G. Komen for the Cure® asked the IOM to review the current evidence on breast cancer and the environment, consider gene–environment interactions, review the research challenges, explore evidence-based actions ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Breast cancer risk in relation to ...

Nov 23, 2012

"A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that mammary carcinogens and/or EDCs contribute to the incidence of breast cancer. Yet there remain gaps and limitations. This exploratory population-based case–control ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Breast Cancer Presumed Occupational ...

Mar 18, 2011

Fire fighters in Canada are supporting legislation that would establish a legal presumption that breast cancer is an occupationally related illness. The legislation also creates a presumption that 3 other cancers (skin, prostate ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Breast Cancer Linked to Occupational ...

May 29, 2010

"Odds ratios (ORs) were increased for the usual risk factors for breast cancer and, adjusting for these, risks increased with occupational exposure to several agents, and were highest for exposures occurring before age 36 ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Related articles

• Italy's Supreme Court Rules Cell Phone Brain Cancer Work Related
• $85 Million Verdict Against KBR for Negligently Exposing Soldiers to Toxins in Iraq
• The New Reality |As goes the Labor market, so goes workers compensation
• From Hand to Mouth - Workers Need To Be Concerned About Chemical Safety

Burn Pit Benefits: The US Senate Passed The Pact Act

The burn pit benefit bill now heads back to the US House of Representatives before going to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law; The PACT Act is named in honor of Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson of Ohio.

In and Out of Time in Iraq

Today's post is shared from newyorker.com/

I fell out of time in the summer of 2004. I fell back in about seven years later, on September 11, 2011.

The first fall was slow, more of a slide than a drop. It began as I moved around Baghdad, in the summer of 2003, with a growing sense of unease. On Memorial Day, while reporting for the Washington Post, I went on a 1st Infantry Division patrol in western Baghdad with another Post reporter, Anthony Shadid. I talked to members of the patrol, while Anthony talked to the Iraqis in the neighborhood. “Everybody likes us,” Spec. Stephen Harris, then twenty-one years old, told me. Anthony heard a different story. “We refuse the occupation,” Mohammed Abdullah, a thirty-four-year-old Iraqi, told him. “They’re walking over my heart. I feel like they’re crushing my heart.” (Anthony, who had been shot in Israel, in 2002, and was kidnapped in Libya, in 2011, died while covering the rebellion in Syria in 2012.)

The rest of 2003 brought a series of bombings in Baghdad—of the United Nations office, of foreign embassies, of the Red Cross—that clearly were designed to peel away potential allies from the United States. (The U.S. responded to these attacks with flailing and with moral errors, such as the torture of prisoners—and not just at Abu Ghraib.) In the spring of 2004, there simultaneously was a Shiite...
[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Law Enacted to Phase-Out Use of Military Burn Pits

Recent legislation passed Congress and signed by the President last week mandates the  phase-out burn pits used by the United States military. The law provides for medical monitoring and health assessments of military members who have been exposed to toxic chemicals or airborne contaminants from burn pits. This legislation follows the dismissal, almost a year ago, of litigation against third-party contractors by service members, and their dependents, who became ill after alleged exposure to  the toxic fumes where burn pits were utilized in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Federal research seeks alternatives to addictive opioids for veterans in pain

The National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs this week announced that they will launch a five-year, $21.7 million initiative to study the effectiveness of alternative therapies to opioids through a series of 13 research projects. Nearly half of all troops returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq are suffering from chronic pain, more than double the civilian population, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Many of those veterans have been prescribed opioids. The drugs often have disabling side effects, and some studies show they are often addictive and may exacerbate pain conditions in some patients. The joint research program includes studies on the use of morning light to treat lower-back pain and post-traumatic stress disorder, and the use of chiropractors, self-hypnosis and meditation to reduce pain, said Josephine P. Briggs, director of the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH. Funding for the initiative comes from the NCCAM, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the VA’s Health Services Research and Development Division. The research projects will be done at academic institutions and VA medical centers across the United States. “This is a very urgent issue for the soldiers returning home – the magnitude of the problem is huge,” Briggs...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• For most chronic pain, neurologists declare opioids a bad choice (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Opioid Use in Workers' Compensation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Why Doctors Prescribe Opioids to Known Opioid Abusers - NEJM (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Bill Creating Clear Guidelines in Dispensing of Opiod Medications Introduced in New Jersey Senate (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• DEA: Vicodin, Some Other Pain Meds Will Be Harder to Get (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• Chicago and 2 California Counties Sue Over Marketing of Painkillers (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• F.D.A. Shift on Painkillers Was Years in the Making (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Defense Department to Investigate Hexavalent Chromium Exposure Claims

The US Department of Defense has announced that it will investigate emerging environmental and health risks arising from chemical exposures. One of the particular areas of concern is the exposure to hexavalent chromium that occurred Iraq.

On October 8, the Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs will hold a hearing on chemical exposures including the hexavalent chromium incident.

Chromium exposure has been associated with lung cancer. Breathing high levels of hexavalent chromium can irritate or damage the nose, throat, and lungs. Irritation or damage to the eyes and skin can occur if hexavalent chromium contacts these organs in high concentrations or for a prolonged period of time. Exposure to chromium can occur from inhalation of dusts, mists, or fumes containing hexavalent chromium, or from eye or skin contact with hexavalent chromium.

For more information about chromium exposure click here.

Acclaimed photographer Anja Niedringhaus dies

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from bigstory.ap.org

Anja Niedringhaus faced down some of the world's greatest dangers and had one of the world's loudest and most infectious laughs. She photographed dying and death, and embraced humanity and life. She gave herself to the subjects of her lens, and gave her talents to the world, with images of wars' unwitting victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and beyond. Shot to death by an Afghan policeman Friday, Niedringhaus leaves behind a broad body of work — from battlefields to sports fields — that won awards and broke hearts. She trained her camera on children caught between the front lines, yet who still found a place to play. She singled out soldiers amid their armies as they confronted death, injuries and attacks. Two days before her death, she made potatoes and sausage in Kabul for veteran AP correspondent Kathy Gannon, who was wounded in the attack that killed Niedringhaus, and photographer Muhammed Muheisen. "I was so concerned about her safety. And she was like, 'Momo, this is what I'm meant to do. I'm happy to go,'" Muheisen recalled. And then they talked, and argued. Mostly, they laughed. Niedringhaus, 48, started her career as a freelance photographer for a local newspaper in her hometown in Hoexter, Germany, at the age of 16. Her coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall led to a staff position with the European Pressphoto Agency in 1990. Based in Frankfurt, Sarajevo and Moscow, she spent much of her time covering the brutal conflict in the former...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Inconsequential

Employees Lives Are Inconsequential

Watching the Denzel Washington movie, Flight, this weekend, the importance of workers' compensation as an economic shield for employers became ever so apparent.

Workers' Compensation benefits were discussed in the boardroom following the loss of life of two members of the crew in a fatal crash. When the owner of the airlines was attempting to evaluate his economic exposure of a plane that crashed at the hands of a pilot who was flying DWI, the lawyers responded emphatically, the economic value of the two dead crew members could not be evaluated in the economic equation since their losses were inconsequential to the airlines as they were covered under workers' compensation.

Economics drives safety. If workers' compensrtion does not economically compensate injured workers and their famiies, then the remedy is inadequate. Loss of life should not be deemed inconsequential.

Related articles

• Workers' Compensation May Indeed Fall Off the Fiscal Cliff
• Workers' Compensation Is About Relationships
• Italy's Supreme Court Rules Cell Phone Brain Cancer Work Related
• $85 Million Verdict Against KBR for Negligently Exposing Soldiers to Toxins in Iraq

The President signs the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to thank everybody who is here because they all did outstanding work to help us get this legislation completed.

As you know, I think all Americans feel we have a moral, sacred duty towards our men and women in uniform. They protect our freedom, and it’s our obligation to do right by them. This bill takes another important step in fulfilling that commitment.

I want to thank the members of Congress who helped to make this happen. It is going to have immediate impact. It is going to improve access to health care, streamline services in the VA. It expands support for veterans who are homeless.

There are two parts to the bill, though, that I especially want to highlight. First of all, this bill ends a decade-long struggle for those who serve at Camp Lejeune. Some of the veterans and their families who were based in Camp Lejeune in the years when the water was contaminated will now have access to extended medical care. And, sadly, this act alone will not bring back those we’ve lost, including Jane Ensminger, but it will honor their memory by making a real difference for those who are still suffering.

The second part of this bill that I want to highlight -- prohibit protesting within 300 feet of military funerals during the two hours before and two hours after a service. I supported this step as a senator. I am very pleased to be signing this bill into law. The graves of our veterans are hallowed ground. And obviously we all defend our Constitution and the First Amendment and free speech, but we also believe that when men and women die in the service of their country and are laid to rest, it should be done with the utmost honor and respect.

So I’m glad that Congress passed this bill and I hope that we can continue to do some more good bipartisan work in protecting our veterans. I’ve been advocating, for example, for a veterans job corps that could help provide additional opportunities for the men and women who are coming home as we’re winding down our operations in Afghanistan and having ended the war in Iraq. And so this is a good sign of a bipartisan spirit that I’m sure is going to carry through all the way to Election Day and beyond.

With that, I’m going to sign the bill. Make sure I sign the right place, though.

(The bill is signed.)

There you go. Congratulations, everybody. Good work. Thank you very much.

More about Camp Lejuene

Workers' Compensation: Camp Lejeune Veterans Act

Jul 21, 2012

C.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, announced that the Honoring America's Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012, H.R. 1627 a bill that improves services and care for ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Camp Lejeune Toxic Exposure

Feb 18, 2010

Newly reported information is now demonstrating that the water at Camp Lejeune NC military base may have been contaminated as a result of a toxic spill. Marines, sailors, their families and other civilian contractors may be ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

ATSDR Health Survey of Pre-1986 Personnel at Camp Lejeune

May 28, 2011

During June--December 2011, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry will conduct a health survey of persons who resided or worked at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before 1986 and ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

VA Outlines New Policy to Address Burn Pit Hazards

May 08, 2010

(5) contaminated drinking water at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina; and (6) pollutants from a waste incinerator near the Naval Air Facility (NAF) at Atsugi, Japan. It is imperative that regional office personnel are aware of these ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Related articles

• Obama Signs Bill for Camp Lejeune Water Victims
• More mercury found at Camp Lejeune water plant
• Marine in Hospice Helps Other Veterans

Defense Base Act Bars Convoy Drivers Lawsuit Against KBR

The U.S. Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled the convoy drivers employed by a defense contractor, KBR,  in Iraq were bared by the Defense Base Act (DBA) which is US law that shields military employers from civil actions. The drivers were injured while performing their jobs for the military contractor in providing logistical support to the military.


Read the Bloomberg news dispatch: KBR Won't Face Trial in Convoy Driver Deaths, Court Rules
"Coverage of an injury under the DBA precludes an employee from recovering from his employer,” even if the worker claims the company was “substantially certain” the injuries would occur, U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla R. Owen said in a 30-page ruling by the panel."

The Court's Opinion: Fisher v. Halliburton, 10-20202, U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

Medicare Recovery Contractor Is Operational Again

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Medicaid administrator) logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hurricane Sandy Update

November 4, 2012

The Workers’ Compensation Case Control System (WCCCS) and the Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-aside Portal (WCMSAP) are currently operational. The Workers' Compensation Review Contractor (WCRC) has resumed its duties. 

Related articles

• Tips for Disabled Persons to Prepare for a Hurricane
• $85 Million Verdict Against KBR for Negligently Exposing Soldiers to Toxins in Iraq
• Why Doctors Prescribe Opioids to Known Opioid Abusers - NEJM
• Corrupt Employers Just Keep Cooking the Books

How the West Virginia Spill Exposes Our Lax Chemical Laws

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Site of the spill on the Elk River in West VirginiaFoo Connor/Flickr The West Virginia chemical spill that left some 300,000 people without access to water has exposed a gaping hole in the country's chemical regulatory system, according to environmental experts. Much the state remains under a drinking-water advisory after the spill last week into the Elk River near a water treatment facility. As much as 7,500 gallons of the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, which is used in the washing of coal, leaked from a tank owned by a company called Freedom Industries. A rush on bottled water ensued, leading to empty store shelves and emergency water delivery operations. According to news reports, 10 people were hospitalized following the leak, but none in serious condition. The spill and ensuing drinking water shortage have drawn attention to a very lax system governing the use of chemicals, according to Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who specializes in chemical regulation. "Here we have a situation where we suddenly have a spill of a chemical, and little or no information is available on that chemical," says Denison. West Virginia store shelf. The problem is not necessarily that 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, is highly toxic. Rather, Denison says, the problem is that not a great deal about its toxicity is known. Denison has managed to track down a description of one 1990 study, conducted by manufacturer Eastman Chemical,...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Related articles

• Privatization of workers, compensation continues throughout WV
• Chemical at Goodyear Plant Linked to Bladder Cancer in 50 Workers
• CDC's Camp Lejeune study links birth defects to marine base's drinking water
• Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan battle lung trouble upon return home
• Federal judge rules proof of direct causation unnecessary for BP oil spill claimants
• Formaldehyde Spill At Southern Ocean Medical Center; Three Treated For Inhalation
• California Chemical Plant Leaking Sulfuric Acid Sickens 70