Workers compensation organizations

Many participate in workers compensation organizations. Table 6-1 is an incomplete list of workers compensation organizations. Their publications and resources provide details about workers compensation laws, management, and... 

TABLE 6-1 Incomplete List of Workers Compensation Organizations... 

Workers Compensation (WC) was developed because employers liability defenses were being overturned in court (chapter 4), and it won acceptance because workers needed a financial safety net in view of the human toll of work. It was not intended as an instrument for making work safer. But functions attach themselves to organs, and we have come to rely on WC to steer employers in the direction of injury and illness prevention. 

Many companies and organizations have identified this inherent conflict and separated the workers compensation and safety functions. Although workers compensation is an individnal state program with individual state laws, regulations, and monetary payments, the workers compensation function can be an area of conflict as well as litigation in nnionized as well as nonunion operations. In unionized operations, workers compensation can also be a source of grievance by employees. The inherent conflict resnlting from workers compensation issues between the company and the employee or nnion can create barriers that can detrimentally affect the proactive efforts within the safety fnnction. 

One of the more extensive laws that can have a definite impact on the safety function is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In a nutsheU, the ADA prohibits discriminating against qualified individuals with physical or mental disabilities in all employment settings. For safety professionals, the areas of workers compensation, restricted duty programs, facility modifications, training, and other safety functions are often where the safety function and the ADA may intersect and create duties and responsibilities for the safety professional as well as potential liabilities for the company or organization. 

GINA may impact the safety function in many companies and organizations is in workers compensation, health insurance, medical examinations, medical documentation, and related fields. Safety professionals should pay special attention at any time the issue of genetic information surfaces and ensure that all requirements under GINA are strictly enforced. 

OSHA uses injury and illness rates to assess effectiveness of occupational safety and health efforts. Insurance companies use an experience model to determine good and poor risks for underwriting workers compensation coverage. Accident and injury experience does provide a good indicator about the effectiveness of hazard control initiatives. However, accident frequency and severity rates alone do not always accurately evaluate effectiveness of an accident prevention function. For example, an organization may experience an underreporting of occupational disease cases and hazardous materials exposures (Table 1.21). 

The industrial revolution spawned a major safety movement. The result was government laws and regulations aimed at protecting workers. Early in 1900, many new organizations devoted to safety and health were founded. One surviving example is the National Safety Council. There were many others at national, state, regional, and industry levels. Many no longer exist. Another derivative of the industrial revolution is workers compensation, the idea that workers receive compensation for work-related injuries. 

Find out the values government agencies, state workers compensation standards, insurance companies or organizations and legal associations place on human life. 

Some insurance companies have business opportunities that insure employers and others against accidents and incidents involving people, property and the environment. A significant kind of insurance is workers compensation, discussed in Chapter 6. To reduce claims, insurance companies created services to help their clients reduce accidents and incidents leading to claims, this is called loss control. The fimction involves studying the frequency and severity of claims and how they came about. Loss control specialists use the results to advise clients on ways to avoid those events. The professional organization is the Insurance Loss Control Association (ILCA). 

Human Resource managers often deal with workers compensation and other insurance. They may oversee return-to-work programs following illness and injury. Overall, safety and health functions are a small, but important, element of Human Resources. The professional organization is the Society for Human Resource Management. 

For certain workers compensation systems falling under state jurisdictions, the method for tracking and reporting injuries, illness and deaths may also differ from the above examples. Today, safety records may differ also by country and standards organization. One should investigate the current applicable standards that might apply. 

Obtain a copy of the workers compensation standards used by a different state or country or published by a standards organization. Then evaluate each of the cases in Exercise 1 and determine whether the cases would fall under the record-keeping mles and how the recording keeping may differ from those applicable to OSHA Form 300. 

What is the true value of purchasing a safety cutter Recap for yourself using your organization s numbers lower workers compensation costs and rates, lower medical costs, reduced shrink rates, lower purchase eosts, and no employee ear aeeident lawsuits. Safe vs. unsafe — safe wins. frTi i i... 

Trailing indicators are the traditional metrics that measure past safety efforts (Dupont Corporation 2000). When using trailing indicators, data is collected after the fact (after a number of accidents or illnesses, after two years of workers compensation, etc.). Trailing indicators provide an organization with feedback in terms of how good performance has been over a period of time. Examples of trailing indicators include accident records, loss reports, injury and illness statistics, injury costs, and workers compensation costs. 

Common measures for a safety program s performance are insurance expenses and losses. A cost that is often tracked by safety professionals is the organization s worker compensation premiums. Workers compensation premiums can be calculated in a number of different ways. However, regardless of the method for determining premiums, they provide an excellent indicator for safety performance in the workplace. 

The last component that can affect the organization s EMR is the claim reserves. When a workers compensation is submitted, a reserve is opened which holds the anticipated losses for that claim. Although the claim may actually result in fewer dollars actually paid out when the claim is settled, it is the reserve amount that the insurance company uses when calculating the EMR. Therefore, it is advantageous for the company to work with the insurance company when administering claims and closing them out in a timely manner. 

With these activity-based performance measures, there is also a variety of safety metrics that can be used to assess program performance. As identified by OSHA in studies ofVPP organizations, OSHA injury incidence rates, lost work day rates, and workers compensation losses are a few safety metrics that have been correlated to the performance of the VPP criteria activities. These measures can easily be expanded to include unsafe behaviors, accident trends, and near misses. 

Safety and health information means the establishment s fatality, injury, and illness history OSHA 200 logs workers compensation claims nurses logs the results of any medical screening or surveillance employee safety and health complaints and reports environmental and biological exposure data information from prior workplace safety and health inspections materials safety data sheets (MSDSs) the results of employee symptom surveys safety manuals and health and safety warnings provided to the employer by equipment manufacturers and chemical suppliers information about occupational safety and health provided to the employer by trade associations or professional safety or health organizations and the results of prior accident and incident investigations at the workplace. 

Organizations nsnally keep a variety of records which docnment operating and capital costs. These records assist the organization in determining the efficiencies and effectiveness of their bnsiness sections. They also assist with determining budget planning A portion of these records may involve costs associated with occupational health and safety. The costs of various elements of loss control-for example, security, workers compensation or fire - can be broken down for each centre or department to assess performance. 

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