Copyright
Friday, October 16, 2009
RICO Claim Alleging Underlying Workers Compensation Fraud Dismissed
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
CDC Issues H1N1 Flu Guidance to Healthcare Personnel-"stay home"
In an urgent need to protect healthcare workers from H1N1 Flu, the today CDC has issued guidance on infection control measures to prevent transmission of 2009 H1N1 influenza in healthcare facilities. The CDC continues to recommend that healthcare workers take time away from work if they are ill. The issue unanswered is whether workers' compensation insurance will pay temporary disability benefits for the absence?
The CDC has defined healthcare personnel as, "....For the purposes of this guidance, healthcare personnel are defined as all persons whose occupational activities involve contact with patients or contaminated material in a healthcare, home healthcare, or clinical laboratory setting. Healthcare personnel are engaged in a range of occupations, many of which include patient contact even though they do not involve direct provision of patient care, such as dietary and housekeeping services. This guidance applies to healthcare personnel working in the following settings: acute care hospitals, nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, physician’s offices, urgent care centers, outpatient clinics, and home healthcare agencies. It also includes those working in clinical settings within non-healthcare institutions, such as school nurses or personnel staffing clinics in correctional facilities. The term “healthcare personnel” includes not only employees of the organization or agency, but also contractors, clinicians, volunteers, students, trainees, clergy, and others who may come in contact with patients."
- Instructed not to report to work, or if at work, to promptly notify their supervisor and infection control personnel/occupational health.
- Excluded from work for at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever, without the use of fever-reducing medicines.
For more articles on Workers' Compensation and the Flu Pandemic click here.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Are Driving Distractions Within the Course of the Employment?
- Distracted driving is dangerous. Distraction from cell phone use while driving (hand held or hands free) delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (University of Utah)
- Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent. (Carnegie Mellon)
- 80 percent of crashes are related to driver inattention. There are certain activities that may be more dangerous than talking on a cell phone. However, cell phone use occurs more frequently and for longer durations than other, riskier behaviors. Thus, the #1 source of driver inattention is cell phones. (Virginia Tech 100-car study for NHTSA)
- Drivers that use handheld devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
- Nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted or inattentive driver, and more than half a million were injured. (NHTSA)
- Research shows that the worst offenders are the youngest and least experienced drivers: men and women under 20 years of age. (NHTSA)
- On any given day in 2008, more than 800,000 vehicles were driven by someone using a hand-held cell phone. (National Safety Council)
Public policy has always swayed the direction of the legislature. The facts surrounding distracted driving will probably no exception. Whether this activity can be considered by the courts, as "arising out of and in the course of the employment," or whether the legislature will merely bar compensability if distracted driving is a cause of an accident, has yet to be determined.
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For more on "distracted driving" please click here.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Medicare's Aggressive Debt Collection Practice
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To read more about CMS and Workers' Compensation click here.
Bus Driver Assaulted by Gun Denied Benefits
The employer asserted that assaults could be anticipated and were normal working condition. " SEPTA's workers' compensation coordinator Michael Selvato testified about the records of assaults on operators in an effort to show that the incident was not abnormal. He explained that between June 1 and November 1, 2005 there were 292 passenger disturbances on SEPTA busses and 11 assaults on operators; between November 1, 2005 and June 1, 2006 there were 738 disturbances and 33 assaults; and between June 1, 2006 and June 25, 2007 there were 62 assaults on bus drivers. Selvato noted that there had been two bus drivers threatened with a gun from the beginning of 2007 until the time of the hearing on August 23, 2007. During his time as a trolley driver for SEPTA, Selvato had not been accosted with a gun, but he had been assaulted and threatened with a knife."
In ruling against the worker, the Appeals Board concluded that the working conditions were normal for the job and that the injured worker had not sustained the burden of proof to demonstrate that his "his injury was not a subjective reaction to normal work conditions."
McLaurin v. W.C.A.B. (SEPTA) , 2009 WL 2612578, Pa. Comwlth. 2009)
Thursday, October 8, 2009
New Jersey’s Shining Star
The Toxic Legacy in Iraq
The Public Education Center (PEC) has published the second in a series of investigative articles concerning the toxic exposure of Army National Guard Units to cancer-casuing chemicals allegedly released by a government contractor, KBR, Inc.
The exposure was a result of a release by KBR, Inc. to, “...dichromate, a rust-fighting industrial chemical and highly-concentrated hexavalent chromium compound, Hexavalent chromium.” Hexavalent chromium has been described as the most toxic chemical known to man.
The series entitled, “No Contractor Left Behind,” chronicles “...chronicles how a toxic time bomb followed three Army National Guard units home from Iraq. It reveals how a notorious military contractor exposed American soldiers to a cancer-causing carcinogen on the battlefield and how the Pentagon tried to downplay the consequences. And it describes how Congress has relegated its investigation to a toothless forum that lacks the political clout and oversight powers to ensure effective accountability.”
A law suit has been filed by 30 West Virginia National Guardsman because of the exposure. Last month a Pittsburg shoulder who served in Iraq and was also exposed filed a law suit seeking damages for the consequences of his exposure.
For additional article on the Halliburton-KBR Litigation click here.