Workers Compensation Claims

Let s consider some of the important cost factors of a JHA. These methods can help to improve job procedures and can help to reduce costs that result from absenteeism and workers compensation claims, as well as hidden costs that are usually overlooked. These hidden costs include management time for investigation lost time for other workers who experience some level of trauma hiring and training temporary workers bad publicity, poor product quality, employee morale OSHA citation/fines, court costs, and so on. Reduction of these costs can lead to increased productivity and improved cost to the bottom line. 

To determine which jobs you should analyze first, review your injury and illness reports such as the OSHA 200 log, your medical case histories, your first-aid cases, and workers compensation claims. First, you should conduct a JHA for jobs with the highest rates of disabling injuries and illnesses. Do not forget jobs in which you have had close calls or near hits. You should give these incidents a high priority. Analyses of new jobs and jobs in which changes have been made in processes and procedures should be the next priority. 

Fatal accident rate Lost-time injury rate Capital cost of accidents Number of plant/community evacuations Cost of business interruption Cost of workers compensation claims Number of hazardous material spills (in excess of a threshold) Tonnage of hazardous material spilled Tonnage of air, water, liquid and solid effluent Tonnage of polluting materials released into the environment Employee exposure monitoring Number of work related sickness claims Number of regulatory citations and fines Ecological impact of operations (loss or restoration of biodiversity, species, habitats)... 

Contact dermatitis is a common reason for dermatology referrals and constitutes up to 90% of all workers compensation claims for dermatologic conditions. Although most often seen in adulthood, contact dermatitis can affect all age groups, with females at slightly greater risk than males.28... 

In those jurisdictions where a formal workers compensation system is in effect, the compensation health records provide the most definitive information available because the medical, social, and work history of each employee who applies for workers compensation is investigated in comprehensive detail and is made available in large part to management. Currently, relatively few illnesses, as compared to injuries, are considered for workers compensation claims. However, if a cluster can be found with the same type of complaint, that information can be invaluable. Similar information can be obtained from private insurance companies who provide employee coverage in place of workers compensation. 

Similarly, in Krushwitz v McDonald s Restaurants of Oregon, the court refused to compensate the estate of an employee who fell asleep at the wheel and was killed in an automobile accident as he was returning home after working multiple shifts (51). Although a separate civil case held McDonald s liable for the injuries caused by Krushwitz, the Oregon Supreme Court upheld denial of Krushwitz s workers compensation claim. Because Krushwitz had completed his work and was returning home at time of his death, he was outside of the workers compensation realm. 

Despite a shrinking economy and higher-than-normal unemployment numbers, worker output in the early quarters of 2002 showed increased productivity (55). Fewer workers are being asked to do more. Whether this trend will result in increased litigation concerning sleep deprivation and workers compensation claims is yet to be determined. 

Etisability and health status Can you perform the essential requirements of this job, with or without reasonable accommodation Do you have any disabilities Do you have any conditions that might require accommodation What is your medical history Have you ever filed a workers compensation claim at a former employer ... 

Tarlo SM, Liss G, Corey P, Border I. A workers compensation claim population for occupational asthma. Chest 1995 107(3) 634-41. 

Common sources of 8(c) allegations are worker compensation claims, lawsuits, complaints by neighbors, employee or union complaints, and communications with medical staff. They may arise as well in plant community activities, product stewardship, and customer communications. 

Individual state workers compensation act Whether the safety and health professional possesses a direct or indirect responsibility for workers compensation claims, it is imperative that an expert-level knowledge of the applicable workers compensation laws and regulations for each state in which employees are working be acquired and maintained. Additionally, safety and health professionals should possess a thorough knowledge of all aspects of the workers compensation administration and management. 

Safety and health professionals are aware of the issues that generally make an employee unhappy— namely, lack of perceived adequate compensation levels, too few or too many work hours, unsafe working environments, rigid management, and little or no say as to their job functions or activities. Safety and health professionals are also aware that outside influences such as a labor disputes, workers compensation claim disputes, disciplinary actions, and related activities can also impact the employee s satisfaction in the workplace. 

Source OSHA Directorate of Standards and Guidance. States define "hazardous" employers individually, using criteria such as above-average injury incidence rates for their industry or above-average workers compensation claim experience. ... 

Park merges Minnesota workers compensation claims with survey data from the Minnesota Human Resource Management Practice file, developed at the Industrial Relations Center at the University of Minnesota. He finds that employee participation in decision making lowers the injury claim rate, as our model suggests, but that the reduction is not statistically significant. 

Baril and Berthelette (2000) analyze correlates of early return to work for a sample of Quebec workers compensation claims. Their qualitative analysis draws upon detailed interviews with 16 firms. Though no formal statistical analysis is drawn from these interviews, there appears to be a consensus among those interviewed that health and safety committees facilitate earlier returns to work, as does information sharing by management. However, the authors report that some types of worker involvement actually impeded returns to work returns... 

Unlike the Rooney (1992) and Grunberg, Moore, and Greenberg (1996) studies. Park (1997) distinguishes between decision-making participation and financial-returns participation in his study of Minnesota workers compensation claims. Unexpectedly, Park found that employee participation in financial returns increased the injury rate, as did the interaction between financial returns and decision making. That is, as employee participation in the firm s financial returns rose, so did the injury rate, and the injury rate rose even more in firms with employee participation both in the firm s financial returns and in the firm s deci-... 

Baril and Berthelette s (2000) interviews on early return to work for a sample of Quebec workers compensation claims suggest that upper management support is important. When upper management support is lacking, safety committees are not able to exert any pressure on supervisors to encourage them to comply with the firm s health and safety rules. 

Variable Dependent variable Number of workers compensation claims per employee Dependent variable Average lost workdays per employee Dependent variable Average lost workdays per injury... 

We generally find statistically significant effects, of the expected sign, in the duration models. While we do not report the estimated shape parameters of the Weibull distribution in Tables 3.4 or 3.5, they indicate negative duration dependence as claim duration increases, the rate of exit from claimant status falls. Hence, the longer a claimant stays on a workers compensation claim, the less likely he is to leave it. 

Butler, Durbin, and Helvacian (1996) use this distinction between diffieult-to-monitor and easy-to-monitor injuries to explore whether soft-tissue injury elaims correlate with level of benefits and spread of HMOs. They find in their 10-year, 15-state sample of workers compensation claims that the proportion of claims attributable to soft-tissue injuries rose from 44.7 percent of all claims in 1980 to 50.6 percent in 1989. Concurrently, the share of costs attributable to soft-tissue injuries rose from 41 pereent to 48.8 percent. The share of costs for injuries that crush or fracture a bone—easy-to-monitor claims—is the only category that declined between 1980 and 1989. Using a multinomial logit model, the authors determine that most of the increase in soft-tissue injury is attributable to the expansion of HMOs. Specifically, they ascribe the rise in such injuries to moral hazard response by HMO providers, who increase their revenue by classifying as woik-related injuries as many health conditions as possible. ... 

Second, the multinomial estimates provide no corroborative evidence of moral hazard behavior with regard to other (non-HR) results Downsizing has no impact on claim types, increases in the replacement rate do not increase the proportion of lower back sprains, and self-insurance does not lower the proportion of lower back sprains. As the replacement rate increases, the opportunity cost of being out of work on a workers compensation claim falls. Claims-reporting moral hazard will likely increase, especially for injuries (such as lower back sprains) whose work origin is difficult to monitor or detect. Hence, an increase in claims-reporting moral hazard ought to increase the proportion of low back sprains. 

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