This year’s first edition of Health Wonk Review is posted at The Health Care Blog. Host Brian Klepper has done an excellent job culling out what he describes as “… the far-ranging insights, jabs, diatribes, rants and enthusiasms of this edition of Health Wonk Review, which features analysis and exegesis as entertainment.” Because HWR took a brief hiatus over the holiday, this issue is even newsier and meatier than the norm, so some good Friday reading.
And for another way to spend your Friday afternoon, we note that Ma-based plaintiff attorney Alan S. Pierce of Legal Talk Network has produced an interesting podcast on cardiac injury claims which features Dr. Julian Aroesty, a cardiologist from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The discussion centers on causation, liability for the employer in workers compensation, and subsequent work restrictions for return to work. Heart attacks are one of those tricky areas of workers compensation that may or or may not be compensable depending on circumstances. Because of the gray areas, it is an issue that frequently results in litigation. In listening to Dr. Aroesty, it certainly brings to mind the interplay between general health and wellness and the relationship to work-related injuries. Dr. Aroesty states that many patients have symptoms of heart disease before an event occurs but often don’t recognize them as such because the symptoms don’t take the form of sharp pains. It would seem that providing basic health information related to common high-risk health conditions such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes would be in the best interests of employers to maintain a productive, healthy work force and to reduce the risk for potential workers comp and disability claims.