OSHA Expands Mandatory Reporting Requirements to Encompass Individual Employee Hospitalizations, Amputations, and Eye Loss
Jason Markel, Hodgson Russ LLP:
“On September 11, 2014, OSHA adopted a final rule that significantly broadens the mandatory reporting requirements, resulting in an amended Section 1904.39 that becomes effective on January 1, 2015. The amended regulation will require employers not only to report deaths within eight hours as before; it also mandates that employers report to their local OSHA office, subject to limited exceptions, all in-patient hospitalizations of an employee, all amputations, and all eye loss incidents within 24 hours of the event. And, of course, these events must also be recorded on the employer’s OSHA 300 log.”
Related:
Changing Soon: OSHA Requirements for Reporting Fatalities and Severe Injuries
Biz groups ‘alarmed’ by new OSHA rules for workplace accidents
OSHA Will Put Workplace Safety Data Online as ‘Nudge’ to Employers
Other OSHA News
Top 10 OSHA violations in 2014
OSHA targets companies that punish employees for reporting injuries
OSHA’s List of Severe Violators Grows by 23 Percent
There are currently 423 sites in the program. “Launched in 2010, OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program “concentrates resources on inspecting employers who have demonstrated indifference to their OSH Act obligations by willful, repeated or failure-to-abate violations,” in the words of the agency.”
Posts Tagged ‘OSHA’
OSHA Update: New reporting requirements, top violations & more
Thursday, October 2nd, 2014OSHA: No More Falling Workers
Tuesday, February 25th, 2014In May 2012, we posted about the excellent Frontline – Pro Publica documentary report on on cell tower worker deaths: The high price for fast phones: Cell tower deaths. Since that time, the issue has gotten worse, not better. In 2013, there were 13 cell tower-related fatalities. In the first two months of 2014, there have already been 4 fatalities related to cell towers.
In response to these deaths, The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is collaborating with the National Association of Tower Erectors and other industry stakeholders to ensure that every communication tower employer understands their responsibility to protect workers performing this high-hazard work. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health David Michaels has issued a warning letter to Communication Tower Industry Employers reiterating these responsibilities.
In addition, OSHA has launched resources to focus on protecting cell tower employees in its No More Falling Workers initiative. It has created a new Web page – Communication Towers – targeting the issues surrounding communication tower work.
Education is great in as far as it goes, which isn’t all that far. The problems that plague the industry and the related deaths revolve around the unrelenting deadlines to complete towers to meet demand and the complex network of contractors and subcontractors that allow the tower owner to shrug off responsibility for any deaths.
Travis Crum of the Charleson Gazette echoes the problems found in the Frontline-Pro Publica report in his reporting about three West Virgina tower-related fatalities earlier this month: Company that owns collapsed Clarksburg cell towers had fatalities before
“These incidents seem likely to continue as cell companies push contractors and their employees to meet rising demand for 4G and 4GLTE data networks, said Randy Gray, a former OSHA inspector from Kentucky.”
“Gray said cellphone companies are racing to replace older 3G networks with 4G, or fourth-generation, networks. This rapid expansion places cell tower climbers at risk, Gray said, who now does private consulting on accidents and fatalities at cell tower sites.”
He also explains why it’s so difficult to hold the cell tower owners/networks responsible:
To make matters worse, Gray said, it’s difficult for OSHA to hold companies such as SBA responsible, because there’s a web of contractors and sub-contractors who often shield them from scrutiny.
OSHA investigators must prove several elements before citing a company, Gray said, one of them being knowledge of potential hazards.
“With the owner of the cell tower not being present at the time of the fatality, it’s hard to prove they had knowledge about what the employees were signing off on,” he said. “So these companies start layering themselves between the people who work on the ground, and this layering, in my opinion, protects them from possibly being cited by OSHA or being involved in OSHA inspections.”
So while it’s great that OSHA is warning employers and putting an emphasis on tower worker safety, it will serious accountability to drive the change.
Related:
Wireless Estimator tracks U.S. tower-related fatalities
13 Cell Tower Maintenance Workers Died on the Job in 2013
Cell tower worker fatalities continue: More than a dozen deaths since 2012
OSHA Urges Tower Employers to Protect Workers After Recent Spate of Fatalities
Cell Tower Deaths Get OSHA’s Attention
West Virginia Firefighter Killed in Secondary Collapse at Cell Phone Tower Rescue, Two Workers Also Dead
Combustible Dust: the culprit in Omaha’s explosion?
Friday, January 24th, 2014When we first heard about the terrible explosion at the International Nutrition animal feed plant in Omaha, Nebraska that claimed two lives and injured many others this week, we had one thought: Combustible dust.
In non-technical terms, combustible dust is any dust from industrial processes that will catch fire and have the potential for explosions in confined spaces. Wikipedia offers this simple explanation of conditions:
There are four necessary conditions for a dust explosion or deflagration:
1. A combustible dust
2. The dust is suspended in the air at a high concentration
3. There is an oxidant (typically atmospheric oxygen)
4. There is an ignition source
There are many sources of ignition – fire, friction, arc flash, hot surfaces and electrostatic discharge. It’s an exposure in many industries: food production, metal processing, wood products chemical, manufacturing, rubber & plastics, coal-fired power plants, to name a few.
OSHA Investigates
Yesterday, Celeste Monforton of The Pump Handle reported that “OSHA and other investigators suspect that an explosion of combustible dust played some role in the disaster.” Her post recounts the OSHA and the Obama administration’s failure to take action on passing a combustible dust standard.
“But month after month, year after year, the Labor Department has failed to act. Last fall, OSHA indicated it plans to take comments in April 2014 from a select group of small business on a draft version of a regulation. That’s a step the agency previously suggested would take place in April 2011, then December 2011, then October 2013, and November 2013.”
Monforton also points to an excellent Center for Public Integrity (CPI) investigation that analyzed data compiled by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, finding that more than 450 accidents involving dust have killed nearly 130 workers and injured another 800-plus, Since 1980, noting that “Both agencies, citing spotty reporting requirements, say these numbers are likely significant understatements.” Here’s the full report: Unchecked dust explosions kill, injure hundreds of workers
In the wake of the Imperial Sugar disaster which killed 14 workers and injured 36, the Chemical Safety Board has produced many reports on combustible dust explosions, including the excellent safety video below.
We also found this short video by FM Global to be compelling.
The text explantion for the video says:
“Did you know that dust can explode?
That is to say any organic material–wood, paper, rubber, fiber, food, tobacco, etc.–can create dust given the right conditions.
In this controlled demonstration at FM Global’s one–of-a-kind Research Campus in West Glocester, RI, the five ingredients needed to cause dust to explode–air, fuel, heat, suspension and confinement–are provided to cause the explosion, or more appropriately, a partial volume deflagration.
Here, one hard hat full (11 lbs. or 5 kg.) of coal dust is placed in a trough approximately 2/3 of the height of the enclosure, which measures 10 ft. wide x 12 ft. deep x 15 ft. high. A small charge was then introduced to disturb and suspend the dust followed by an ignition source (bottle rocket).
Although you may not be able to totally eliminate combustible dust from your process or your facility, there are prevention measures you can take to reduce the frequency of dust fires and explosions. Likewise, control measures can reduce the severity of a fire or explosion. Together, these can help you reduce the likelihood of property damage and business interruption.
Takeaway: If it didn’t start out as a rock, it can explode.”
Find out more about this test in an article Dust to Ashes (PDF) in FM Global’s Reason, page 38.
Santa’s workshop: “OSHA problems galore” say whistleblowers
Monday, December 23rd, 2013
Not to be a holiday killjoy, but if Santa does not show up at your house we think we know why. We just saw a press release about a lawsuit alleging that Santa promotes hostile and unsafe work environment in shelf-elf program. The suit is filled with some pretty shocking allegations which, if true might ground the big guy. What’s more, it follows on the heels of some other recent charges by Buddy the Elf, a whistleblower who revealed some horrible and unsafe labor practices in Santa’s workshop. Charges range from elves being paid in candy canes to exposed to terrible health hazards due to being housed with wild ruminants and exposed to their waste. The horror.
Part of the reason Santa has been able to get away with questionable practices is that his workshop is located outside of OSHA’s jurisdiction. He’s not beholden to US labor laws. At the oshatraining blog, Curtis Chambers does a great job explaining other safety problems that were identified at Santa’s North Pole workshop – no machine guarding, no personal protective equipment and no fall protection to name a few. Apparently Santa is getting fed up with all the criticism and bad publicity. Curtis explains that in recent years, to improve his image, Santa has entered a voluntary OSHA compliance program. It hasn’t all been easy, there have been some bumps in the road. You can read all about it in In Curtis’ post How OSHA nearly killed Christmas.
We are hoping Santa will be getting some help soon, though. Between Amazon’s delivery drones and Google’s somewhat terrifying BigDog and PetMan robots, things may get a little more mechanized in his workshop of the future. Then Santa can ditch the sleigh and ride in a driver-less car.
What’s odd about this picture?
Tuesday, August 13th, 2013Delaine Davis has been sentenced to 4 to 6 years in Wyoming Women’s Center jail. Her crime was workers’ compensation fraud of $11,072. She knowingly collected workers comp benefits while being gainfully employed in another job. In addition to her jail term, she was ordered by Judge Marvin L. Tyler to pay $11,072 in restitution to the State of Wyoming.
Is it just us, or does that penalty seem a little harsh? Perhaps there are some extenuating circumstances that contributed to the sentence that weren’t revealed in news reports. Certainly, we would agree that fraud is bad and should be punished – we have no argument with that. Apparently, Ms. Davis willfully violated the law. She should indeed be required to pay restitution and suffer some punishment for her crime — but 4 to 6 years seems pretty steep to us — particularly in contrast to the “up to 6 month” jail penalty for a willful violation resulting in a worker fatality under OSHA’s general duty clause:
(e) Any employer who willfully violates any standard, rule, or order promulgated pursuant to section 6 of this Act, or of any regulations prescribed pursuant to this Act, and that violation caused death to any employee, shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both; except that if the conviction is for a violation committed after a first conviction of such person, punishment shall be by a fine of not more than $20,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both.
In looking further into the data, we turned up this SHRM article: Report Finds OSHA Resources Lacking, Penalties Weak, which notes that:
“The median penalty for a fatality investigation conducted in FY 2012 was $5,175 for federal OSHA, and the median current penalty for the state OSHA plans combined was $4,200, according to OSHA enforcement data.
Criminal enforcement under the OSH Act has been and remains exceedingly rare, the report said.
Only 84 cases have been prosecuted since 1970, with defendants serving a total of 89 months in prison. During this time there were more than 390,000 workplace fatalities, according to Labor Department data. In FY 2012 13 cases were referred for possible criminal prosecution.”
Fraud is serious business and we all pay the price. Wyoming has chosen to wield a pretty big stick in doling out punishment, noting that “Workers’ compensation is intended to help workers injured on the job, We won’t stand for people who defraud and abuse this important program.” OK. But when it comes to protecting workers and keeping them safe, the state takes less of a hard line and more of a courtesy approach to safety, generally favoring carrots over penalties. This hasn’t produced great results: While there have been some small improvements of late, Wyoming has a pretty ignominious record when it comes to worker fatalities. Except for the most recent year, Wyoming has consistently ranked as the worst or the next-to-the-worst state for worker fatalities over the past decade.
Walking down the grain … and the fines
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013
It’s called “walking down the grain,” it’s illegal and it results in suffocation deaths on farms with frightening regularity. It refers to the practice of workers going into grain silos and bins with shovels and picks to break up clogs in the grain so that it can flow smoothly. It’s a highly dangerous practice that can result in sudden entrapment similar to being sucked in by quicksand. It can happen in less than a minute.
This summer is starting as many others, with a lone worker trapped and suffocated in a grain silo – his would be rescuers talk about futile attempts to save him. News reports say that he fell in – until OSHA investigations, we may not know the particulars around why he entered the bin alone and had no protection, such as harnesses. Sometimes farmers do this on their own. Sometimes, they send workers in to walk down the grain – often teens, immigrants or some other temporary workers who may not be aware of the dangers. That was the case in 2010 when a 20 year old and two teens were entrapped in an Indiana silo. One teen survived.
2010 was a year for the record books. Heavy rains the prior year made for very moist, clumpy grain in storage. Twenty-six people died in that year, the worst year in decades.
According to the Center for Public Integrity:
“At least 498 people have suffocated in grain bins since 1964, according to data analyzed for the Center and NPR by William Field, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University.
At least 165 more people drowned in wagons, trucks, rail cars or other grain storage structures. Almost 300 were engulfed but survived. Twenty percent of the 946 people caught in grain were under 18.”
It should be noted that these are reported incidents.
Walking down the fines
This spring, the Center for Public Integrity and NPR produced a special investigative series called Buried in Grain. In a recorded segment, the sole survivor of the Indiana grain bin entrapment recounts the experience, a gripping and powerful account. The first segment also talks about another dangerous practice: how almost all the fines levied by OSHA in such fatalities wind up being slashed in what might be termed “walking down the fines.” In subsequent reports, the series talks about why storage bin rescues are so risky and complex, and a third offers prevention strategies.
Liz Borowski of The Pump Handle links to various other news reports and resources on grain bins and temporary workers. The Pump Handle, an excellent blog that reports on public health and policy issues, has been great in keeping attention on this subject. We also point you to the powerful video on Grain Bin Safety issued by The National Corn Growers Association and the National Grain and Feed Foundation, previously posted here.
Farming is a dangerous livelihood. Storage facilities present many other dangers. A year after the deaths discussed in the above report, we posted about two teens who both lost legs in a grain bin augur accident. Other grain storage hazards beyond engulfment and suffocation or being caught in machinery include lung disease and poisoning from fumigants, mold, and grain dust. Plus, the risk of explosions from combustible dust: this year has seen at least two deaths related to a grain bin explosion in Indiana.
OSHA has put bin operators on notice and provides a variety of tools and resources about grain handling safety. Many are cynical, however, that with weak enforcement and continued “walking down the fines” the practice of “walking down the grain” won’t go away any time soon.
“A worker’s first day at work shouldn’t be his last day on earth”
Tuesday, February 12th, 2013Temporary worker Lawrence Daquan Davis was 21 years old – just a few months over the legal drinking age in Florida when he began working at the Bacardi Rum bottling plant in Jacksonville. Sadly, he had a very short career. It began on August 16, 2012 and ended shortly before 5 pm on the same day after he was crushed and killed by a palletizer machine. Davis was an employee of Remedy Intelligent Staffing, a temporary staffing agency that was contracted by Bacardi Bottling.
According to OSHA, which issued $192,000 in penalties to Bacardi this week for a dozen willful and serious violations, the company had failed to train temporary employees on lockout-tagout procedures and failed to ensure its own employees used such procedures. Lockout-tagout is an industry standard designed to ensure that dangerous machines are properly shut off during maintenance so they can’t be started up until completion. There’s a locking device that renders the machine inoperable, and a tag to alert others that the machine is shut shut down.
In speaking of this death, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels issued the phrase that is the title of our post. He also said:
“We are seeing untrained workers – many of them temporary workers – killed very soon after starting a new job. This must stop,” said Michaels. “Employers must train all employees, including temporary workers, on the hazards specific to that workplace – before they start working. Had Bacardi done so, this tragic loss of life could have been prevented.”
The Texas Mutual Insurance Company Blog has a post about The ABCs of New Employee Safety. The post offers some good tips on tips on safety education for new employees, along with these statistics about the high rate of injuries to new workers:
“Approximately 27 percent of job-related fatalities involve employees who have been on a new job for less than 90 days, according to a recent Texas Mutual claim analysis. Similarly, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Office of Statistics says 40 percent of employees injured at work have been on the job less than one year. New employees need to be made aware of how serious safety training is from their first day at a new job.”
New workers – particularly young workers – are often inexperienced and unaware of the hazards in a new workplace. They are also often eager to please, to keep the job. We’ve written about the importance of training and safeguarding young workers many times.
The on-the-job death of a young worker is a terrible way for a company to “get religion” about safety.
Related:
OSHA’s Lockout-Tagout Interactive Training
OSHA Announces National Emphasis Program for Nursing and Residential Care Facilities
Monday, April 30th, 2012According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, nursing and residential care facilities experienced some of the highest rates of lost workdays due to injuries and illnesses. In response to this, OSHA has announced a new National Emphasis Program for Nursing and Residential Care Facilities to protect workers from serious safety and health hazards that are common in medical industries. These hazards include exposure to blood and other potentially infectious material; exposure to other communicable diseases such as tuberculosis; ergonomic stressors related to lifting patients; workplace violence; slips, trips and falls, and exposure to hazardous chemicals and drugs. See OSHA’s complete directive PDF).
Safe Lifting
Injuries resulting from patient transfer and patient lifting are a particular area of concern. According to OSHA:
“The incidence rate for cases involving days away from work in the nursing and residential care sector was 2.3 times higher than that of all private industry as a whole, despite the availability of feasible controls to address hazards. The data further indicate that an overwhelming proportion of the injuries within this sector were attributed to overexertion as well as to slips, trips and falls. Taken together, these two categories accounted for 62.5 percent of cases involving days away from work within this industry in 2010. For this NEP, OSHA will target facilities with a days-away-from-work rate of 10 or higher per 100 full-time workers.”
According to the American Nurses Association, 12% of nurses leave the profession due to back pain. Nursing is one of the top 10 most hazardous jobs for injuries to muscles and joints. Many heavy labor industrial jobs have weight lifting limits of 50 pounds, yet nurses routinely bear many times that weight when transferring, repositioning or lifting patients. Nursing home workers in particular are at higher risk of injury than underground coal miners, construction workers, and tire manufacturers. Of the 16 million US workers employed in health care and social assistance, more than 3 million are employed in US nursing and residential care facilities.
NCCI study on safe lifting programs for long-term care facilities
A few years ago, an important NIOSH study on nursing home lifting equipment demonstrated that the benefits outweigh the costs. In addition to recapping the equipment investment in less than three years, NIOSH found a 61% reduction in resident-handling workers’ compensation injury rates; a 66% drop in lost workday rates; and a 38% decline in restricted workdays. Plus, the rate of post-intervention assaults during resident transfers dropped by 72%. Study authors found that the initial investment in equipment was recovered in less than three years based on post-intervention savings in workers’ compensation costs
More recently, further evidence was released via a study by NCCI: Safe Lifting Programs at Long-Term Care Facilities and Their Impact on Workers Compensation Costs (PDF). The study was a collaborative effort with the University of Maryland School of Medicine. It was limited to facilities that have had safe lift programs in place for more than three years. Originally, researches intended to compare the experience of facilities with and without such programs, but during the course of the research, the rate of adoption of safe lifting devices was so great that close to 95% of facilities had them and about 80% of those used them regularly.
NCCI summarizes the study results:
“After controlling for ownership structure and differences in workers compensation systems across states, the statistical analysis performed as part of this study shows that an increased emphasis on safe lift programs at long-term care facilities is associated with fewer workplace injuries and lower workers compensation costs. More precisely, higher values of the safe lift index are associated with lower values for both frequency and total costs. The safe lift index captures information on the policies, training, preferences, and barriers surrounding the use of powered mechanical lifts. The institution’s commitment to effectively implementing a safe lift program appears to be the key to success.”
According to the earlier NIOSH study, training alone is ineffective as a prevention strategy because “lifting the weight of adult patients is intrinsically unsafe.” It’s also important to note that the equipment alone won’t do it – workers also need to be trained how to use the equipment and management must implement and enforce a “zero lifting” policy.
Many states have safe patient handling laws
In recent years, a number of states have enacted legislation mandating safe patient lifting – and that no doubt has contributed to the rapid adoption rate noted by NCCI researchers. According to the American Nursing Association, a strong advocate for such legislation, 10 states have implemented safe patient handling laws. These include California, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington, with a resolution from Hawaii. In addition, they are tracking 6 states with pending legislation currently: California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri and Vermont.
Tools & Resources
- NIOSH: Safe Patient Handling and Movement Principles
- OSHA: Nursing Homes and Personal Care Facilities
- ANA: Safe Patient Resources
- ANA Safe Patient Handling Tip Sheet
- Facility Guidelines Institute Patient Handling and Movement Assessments: A White Paper (PDF)
- CAL-OSHA A Back Injury Prevention Guide for Health Care Providers (PDF)
- States with Safe Patient Handling Laws – Map
- Safe Lifting Portal
- Ohio BWC Lifting Guidelines
“An unprotected trench is an open grave”
Thursday, February 9th, 2012A little more than a week ago, family members and coworkers watched helplessly as 39-year old Raul Zapata was buried alive when a wall of dirt fell on him at a residential construction worksite in Milpitas, California. Zapata was working in a 12-foot deep ditch, the foundation of a 5,800 square foot home in a gated community. The cave in was extensive enough that it took two days to rescue his body. Zapata and his coworkers should not have been working at all that day because three days prior, the city had issued a stop work order to the construction company, U.S. Sino Investments Inc. The order was issued after a city building inspector determined that the ditch was a safety hazard due to a lack of adequate shoring to prevent a cave-in.
To add insult to injury, the employer did not have workers’ comp insurance. They also lacked a permit, a state requirement for any projects deeper than five feet. In a case of closing the barn door, the Contractors State License Board has since suspended U.S.-Sino Investment’s general building contractor license for this failure. The flouting of the stop work order, the failure to get a trenching permit and the failure to carry workers comp coverage – these are not unsurprising accompaniments to trenching fatalities. Fatalities are often preceded by multiple citations or warnings and violators are often serial violators. It’s not uncommon for OSHA to issue mulitple “willful” citations related to trenching failures. OSHA defines a willful violation as one “committed with an intentional disregard of, or plain indifference to” OSHA requirements, the highest level of citation, carrying fines of $5,000 to $70,000 per incident.
Two workers a month are buried alive in trench collapses. Most of these tragedies are avoidable simply by following OSHA standards, which mandate that all excavations 5 feet or deeper be protected against collapse. It’s a stroke of luck that no other workers were killed at the Milpitas site – it’s not uncommon for rescuers to rush to the aid of a victim and become entrapped themselves when an a secondary collapse occurs. Trench rescues require speed, precision, and expertise.
To help curtail fatalities that OSHA describes as “entirely preventable,” in October they released new trenching safety guidance, including the following safety materials:
Fact sheet: Trenching and Excavation (PDF)
Quick Card: Working Safely in Trenches (PDF)
Poster: An unprotected trench is an early grave (PDF)
OSHA – Confined Space
Health Wonkery, FL money trail, work violence report & more
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012Louise Norris jumps into the political fray with this week’s Health Wonk Review – Campaign 2012 Edition at Colorado Health Insurance Insider. It’s a great edition with some solid submissions, and we are smitten by the great historic voting photos that Louise used to punctuate the posts. Check it out.
Other noteworthy news
Follow the money – In the continuing saga of Florida’s physician-dispensed workers comp drugs and the associated costly price tag for employers, Joe Paduda looks at the behind-the-scenes opposition muscle aimed at any legislative attempts to put limits on this practice. He cites a recent research report, which tracked more than $3 million in political donations to “one Mirimar address, dozens of companies.” The Florida Independent news story goes on to say, “In suburban Tampa, a single-story building at 610 South Blvd. is home to countless political committees in Florida and all over the country, and is known as a veritable political action committee mill. A similar story lies in Miramar, where two doctors — Paul Zimmerman and Gerald Glass — run dozens of companies that, altogether, have funneled more than $3 million into state political campaigns and committees in recent years.” Joe notes, “$3.2 million total shows clearly just how important Florida is to dispensing companies and their affiliates.”
Violence in the Workplace – “Workplace homicides ‘Are not crimes of passion committed by disgruntled coworkers and spouses, but rather result from robberies.’ And the majority of workplace assaults are committed by healthcare patients.” These are a few top line findings in the NCCI research report on Violence in the Workplace. Although homicides are trending down, they comprise 11% of workplace fatalities. You can download a copy of the complete report, which is part of NCCI’s ongoing research into the topic of work violence.
New blog of note – The folks at PRIUM, a workers’ compensation utilization management company, have recently launched Evidence Based, a blog that will focus on our favorite topic – workers comp – with particular emphasis on the over-utilization of prescription drugs in the treatment of injured workers. Recent posts have dealt with state efforts to control narcotics. See recent posts on Arizona: The Simple Path to Controlling Narcotics in Non-Monopolistic States and Ohio’s New Rules: A Good Start (with a Potential Gap).
Getting social – Pro tip for social media users: If you are going to file a workers’ comp claim, you should think twice about posting party pics on Facebook – judges may take them into consideration when evaluating the merit of your claim.
The Feds & Fraud – In Government Executive, Kellie Lunney explores the reasons why the federal workers’ comp program remains vulnerable to fraud. According to a study by the Government Accountability Office, limited access to data is a key culprit. “Specifically, we found that limited access to necessary data is potentially reducing agencies’ ability to effectively monitor claims and wage-loss information,” the report stated. In addition, agencies’ overreliance on self-reported data from claimants, the frequent use of physicians not employed or selected by the government, and the expense involved in conducting investigations and prosecutions have stymied efforts to stamp out fraud. GAO noted that investigations are the “most costly and least effective” way to reduce fraud, but the ability to prosecute those who cheat the system is a valuable deterrent.
OSHA Posting Compliance – Employers, did you remember to post OSHA Injury & Illness Reports on Feb 1? If not, make sure that you do. Rules require that employers post “…the official summary of all injuries and illnesses occurring in the previous year. The information must be compiled on the OSHA Form 300A or an equivalent and posted in a conspicuous place or places where notices to employees are customarily posted. The information must remain up through April 30, 2012.” For more information and to learn if this requirement applies to your organization, check out OSHA’s Recordkeeping page.
Quick takes
- The Emerging Risks of 2012
- The supersizing of America: retooling for the obesity crisis
- Some Downsides of Social Media for Doctors
- Report: U.S. may never get back its investment in AIG
- OSHA Pocket Guide – Protecting Yourself from Noise in Construction (PDF)
- Why inspectors might hesitate to shut down a mine
- Untreatable Tuberculosis Baffles Doctors
- 5 Ways Employers Can Reduce Worker Stress
