Posts Tagged ‘pachydermodactyly’

Risk, creeping catastrophics, fraud, obesity, pachydermodactyly, and more

Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

Risk RoundupCavalcade of Risk #159 – Early Edition is posted at My Wealth Builder. We’d like to highlight Jason Shafrin’s post as particularly noteworthy for our readers: Healthcare Costs to Rise by over 7 percent in 2013.
Creeping catastrophics – Our colleague Mark Walls has a good article in Business Insurance on Creeping Catastrophic Claims – How to Spot Them and Stop Them. “These claims start out like any other case, usually with a back, knee or shoulder injury. However, because of a series of events, they end up costing the employer hundreds of thousands of dollars. These developmental claims share many common characteristics that, if identified and addressed in a timely manner, can prevent significant adverse development of the claims.”
Big bucks fraud – John D’Alusio unpacks the AIG debacle and explains how it hurts us all in his post Gaming the Workers Comp System at Workerscompensation.com.
Ergonomics of obesity – What does obesity look like to a workplace ergonomist? “Increased obesity in the workplace means more arthritis, larger waist circumferences, additional work limitations, compromised grip strength, decreased lower limb mobility and medical risks. Obese employees might be more vulnerable to falls and their manual material handling ability may be compromised. Obesity also can impact self-esteem, motivation, absenteeism, presenteeism, premature mortality and more.” More at Ergonomic Strategies for Managing Obesity in the Workplace
Case Law – The Tennessee Supreme Court found for an employer in a statute of limitations case involving PTSD. The employer argued that the statute of limitations clock began ticking when the event that caused the trauma occurred (viewing the bodies of two co-workers killed on the job), but the court found that the statute of limitations does not begin to run until an employee discovers the injury and, in this case, the employee did not know he had PTSD until some time after the workplace deaths occurred.
DOL Transparency – In 2011, the Department of Labor proposed a rule strengthening safety provisions for children under age 15 who work on farms. The rule had a parental exemption so that kids could still work on family farms. Apparently, industry pressure led DOL to withdraw the rule. DOL also removed the proposed rule from its website and Celeste Monforton posts that Government transparency groups are asking the Labor Dept to restore info scrubbed from website.
Texting while driving – Steve Yahn of Risk & Insurance looks at how Companies Fight Against Texting and Driving. He notes, “Gavejian and other experts who work with companies to develop cell phone and texting policies said that businesses need to first assess how technology is used in their workplace on a daily basis.”
Food processing hazard – A new report describes two cases of poultry workers who developed chronically swollen knuckles, the hallmark sign of a rare skin condition known as pachydermodactyly: Hand deformities turn up in poultry workers, report finds.
Other noteworthy news