News roundup: Kudos, risk, mining fatalities, $576 billion pricetag, and more

September 19th, 2012 by Julie Ferguson

The man of the hour – Kudos to Gary Annenberg, whose guest post on Predictive Modeling we featured earlier this week. We were pleased to learn that he was also just named as a 2012 Risk Innovator in Safety and Prevention. The awards are presented annually by Risk & Insurance – see a list of all 2012 Risk Innovators. But that’s not the only news item we noticed about Gary – he is also scheduled as a speaker for the 2012 Business Insurance Workers Compensation Virtual Conference on Oct 25. There’s no charge to attend, and Gary is one of an impressive lineup.
Cavalcade of Risk – Jeff Rosen makes his hosting debut with the biweekly roundup of risk-related posts at his Life Insurance blog – check it out: Cavalcade of Risk #166.
Recommended reading – Check out Sandy’s Corner over at Meddata. It’s a forum where Sandy Blunt occasionally opines, most recently on Medical Treatment Guidelines. Among the many hats Sandy wears, he provides consulting services to Medata as a technical subject matter expert in workers’ compensation.
Emergency Responders – This month, NIOSH Science Blog focuses on safety and health risks related to emergency workers. The post includes links to a new technical assistance document, Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance. It includes specific recommendations and tools for all phases of a response, including the pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment phase. The intent is to identify exposures and/or signs and symptoms early in the course of an emergency response.
Mining fatalities higher than last year – At Coal Tattoo, journalist Ken Ward reports on the death of a West Virginia miner last week at a Consol Energy operation in Monongalia County. The week also saw the death of a miner at a Drummond Mining Co. operation in Alabama. Ken notes that the WV death was the state’s fifth coal-mining fatality in 2012. To date, mining fatalities through mid-September 2012 are higher (15) than at the same point last year (13).
Fraud – A new report from Deloitte Consulting says that fraud is exploding, with the rate of questionable claims increasing by 19 percent from 2009 to 2011. The report says that workers comp is one of the largest fraud areas. And in a related matter, here are the Top 10 Most Sensational Fraud Stories of the First Half of 2012
$576 billion price tag – That’s the annual cost to employers for unhealthy workers, according to the Integrated Benefits Institute. This includes absences ranging from sick days to time lost to workers’ compensation claims. IBI researchers attribute 39 percent (or $227 billion) to lost productivity associated with poor health.
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