Bill Creating Clear Guidelines in Dispensing of Opiod Medications Introduced in New Jersey Senate

The post today is authored by John H. Geaney, Esq. of the NJ Bar, and is shared via njworkerscompblog.com Opioid medications have become a major problem in the New Jersey workers’ compensation system.  The number of workers being prescribed opioids has increased dramatically along with other attendant problems, such as addictions to the medications, excessive periods of use, and large numbers of unused opioid pills due to over-prescribing.  Every workers’ compensation professional can attest to these and other problems with opioid medications, not to mention cases where urine testing shows no trace of opioids in the system despite repeated renewals of opioid prescriptions. On September 30, 2013, Senator Raymond Lesniak and Senator Stephen Sweeney introduced a bill in the New Jersey Senate proposing that medical expenses shall not include coverage of opioid drugs unless the prescribing doctor does the following: 1) takes a thorough medical history and physical examination focusing on the cause of the patient’s pain; 2) does a complete assessment of the potential addiction of the patient to opioids, which would include a baseline urine test and assessment of past and current depression, anxiety disorders and other mood disorders associated with risk of opioid abuse; 3) provides a written treatment plan with measurable objectives, a list of all medications being taken and dosages, a justification for the continued use of opioid...

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Oklahoma: Gov. Fallin's picks for workers comp commission lack experience

Today's post is shared from Tulsworld.com

Gov. Mary Fallin's first two appointments to the state's new workers compensation system have no experience in workers compensation law. And that's OK, says Fallin spokesman Alex Weintz. "As a manager and a business leader, Troy Wilson is acutely aware of how workers compensation affects businesses," said Weintz. "As the former director of the Department of Commerce, Jonna Kirschner knows what an obstacle workers comp costs can be to businesses looking to locate here." Wilson, named by Fallin to be the first chairman of the new Workers Compensation Commission, and Kirschner, who is expected to be one of the commission's first administrative law judges, get high marks all around for integrity and general ability. But the enabling legislation creating the new system specifies that commissioners "must have been involved in the workers compensation field for at least three years." Judges, the law says, "shall have not less than three years of workers compensation experience prior to appointment." Wilson is a retired banker, businessman and Xerox executive who was retired comfortably in Florida at the time of his appointment. Kirschner is an attorney who specialized in corporate law before joining the Commerce Department. She is also the daughter of state Supreme Court Justice Yvonne Kauger, which could complicate the court's consideration of a lawsuit challenging the new system's constitutionality. Weintz said questioning Wilson's...

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Will history of health hazards be repeated at new Wisconsin iron mine?

Today's post was shared from The Pump Handle.... The long-time residents of Iron County, Wisconsin who make up the Iron County Joint Impacts Mining Committee say the open-pit iron mine planned for the Penokee Hills of northern Wisconsin – a range that extends into Michigan where it’s known as the Gogebic Range – will bring much needed good jobs and economic development. Such jobs, the committee told a group of visiting journalists in August, have been lacking since the last Wisconsin iron mines in the area closed in the early and mid-1960s. The jobs the mine would bring are the type needed to keep local communities’ young people from moving away, said committee members. Environmental advocates and other area residents, including many of the region’s tribal leaders, oppose the mine for what they say will be devastating impacts, particularly to the area’s waterways and wetlands. The proposed mine made national news this summer after masked activists harassed mining company personnel and armed security guards were hired to patrol the property. There’s also been considerable controversy over a new law that was passed that will help facilitate the mine. What have not yet received much attention are the potential occupational health hazards of mining and processing the taconite ore the mine is expected to yield. Now in the permitting and exploratory stage of development by Gogebic Taconite LLC – a subsidiary of a company called Foresight Energy that has coal mining operations in...

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Open for Business Tomorrow: Healthcare.gov

Tomorrow marks an historic day in US history. The Federal government launches insurance enrollment under The Affordable Care Act.

Visit Healthcare.gov for further information.

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BP Trial in 2nd Phase, to Set Amount of Oil Spilled

Post shared from the nytimes.com.

With billions of dollars in penalties at stake, the civil trial of the British oil company BP begins its second phase on Monday, which will set the amount of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 workers and soiled hundreds of miles of beaches. The government will argue that a total 4.2 million barrels of oil was discharged into the sea over 87 days, the equivalent of nearly one-quarter of all the oil that is consumed in the United States in a day. BP will counter that the number was closer to 2.45 million barrels. This phase of the trial will also determine if BP prepared adequately for a blowout and if it responded properly once the oil started flowing. Both sides will present their case in Federal District Court in New Orleans using competing technical calculations over the next four weeks. Hanging in the balance are Clean Water Act fines that range from a maximum of $1,100 for every barrel spilled through simple negligence to as much as $4,300 a barrel if a company is found to have been grossly negligent. “This will be largely a battle of experts,” Blaine G. LeCesne, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. The first phase of the trial, which took place over two months this year, centered on whether BP and its contractors were guilty of gross negligence — tantamount to wanton and reckless behavior — in causing the blowout of the Macondo well. Judge Carl J....

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The Government Shutdown is a Kick-In-Gut to Workers' Compensation

Workers' Compensation programs will be impacted by a Government shutdown because of both the offset provisions of the Social Security Act and the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP). Even The SMART Act, recently enacted to hopefully establish a more efficient collection process will be derailed.

As the US House of Representatives, under Republican leadership influenced by The Tea Party, likened in Aaron Sorkin's HBO program, The Newsroom, as "The American Taliban," passed legislation to shutdown the US Government this Tuesday, serious concern exists as to the consequences of the shutdown on workers' compensation programs throughout the nation. 

In many States, whether or not a reverse offset exists, it is essential to determine what a claimant's Average Current Earnings (ACE) are to calculate, and reach a final determination of temporary and permanent disability, in a state workers' compensation claim. The access to those numbers will become difficult to obtain because of administrative rollbacks, and anticipated further delays in claims processing. Even though Federal payments will be forthcoming under protective measures, the claims process will be derailed.

Likewise, the process to obtain conditional payment information will be delayed or non-existent. The provisions of the Medicare Secondary Payer Act mandating reimbursement to The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will be put on hold. Similarly, reviews for future medical compromises embodied in the Workers' Compensation Medicare Set-aside Agreements (WCMSA) will be delayed just because of administrative cutbacks in the claims system, including the appeals process.

The recently enacted provisions of The SMART Act. long sought by a coalition of cottage industries, and compensation parties, to the reimbursement process itself, will face its first major challenge to implementation as the Internet web-portable becomes non-functional. Recently proposed final Rules will face delay in implementation as the exchange of comments under the rulemaking process become further delayed in the process of submission and response.

Overall, the workers who most need the system to function, and who waited the longest time, in waiting for final adjudication of their claims, will become victim of the process. No matter how long the shutdown extends, the Federal action will highlight the continued deterioration of the complex patchwork process know as workers' compensation. The now antiquated, and once expeditious and remedial insurance system, will have suffered yet another devastating blow in its attempt to survive in a radically changing economic and socio-political system.
....

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 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.

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World Trade Center Health Program; Addition of Prostate Cancer to the List of WTC-Related Health Conditions

Recently the Federal Government approved benefits for prostate Cancer for those eligible for 9-11 Health Fund  Claims. The current deadline for some is October, 2013. See the links below the article to learn how to file a claim. Today's post was shared by Safe Healthy Workers and comes from www.federalregister.gov

Table A—Average Costs of Treatment for Prostate Cancer (2011$) Table B—Percentiles of Current Age (on April 11, 2012) for Current Members in the WTC Health Program by Gender and Responder/Survivor Status Table C— Prevalence Table for Prostate Cancer Table D—Cost per 80,000 Responders for Prostate Cancer, 2011$ Table E—Estimated Prevalence of Prostate Cancer by Year Based on 58,500 and 6,500 Responder and Survivor Population, Respectively and Assuming Cancer Rates at U.S. Population Average Table F—Estimated Treatment Costs of Prostate Cancer by Year Based on 58,500 and 6,500 Responder and Survivor Population, Respectively and Assuming Cancer Rates at U.S. Population Average (2011$) Table G—Estimated Prevalence of Prostate Cancer by Year Based on 80,000 and 30,000 Responder and Survivor Population, Respectively and Assuming Incidence of Cancer is 21% Higher Than the U.S. Population Due to 9/11 Exposure Table H—Estimated Treatment Costs of Prostate Cancer by Year Based on 80,000 and 30,000 Responder and Survivor Population, Respectively and Assuming Incidence of Cancer is 21% Higher Than the U.S. Population Due to 9/11 Exposure(2011$) Table I—Breakdown of Estimated Annual WTC Health Program Transfers for Prostate Cancer Based on 80,000 and 58,500 Responders and 30,000 and 6,500 Survivors, 2014-2016, 2011$ This final rule is effective October 21, 2013. Paul Middendorf, Senior Health Scientist, 1600 Clifton Rd. NE., MS: E-20,...

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