Cavalcade of Risk – for the biweekly smorgasbord of risk-related news from the blogosphere, check out the new edition of Cavalcade of Risk hosted at Political Calculations.
The $17 million fraud – not chump change – Most employers and insurers get very heated on the topic of work comp fraud – as well they should. But while keeping an eye on the front door for shoplifting, some thieves are loading up the company safe from the back door. This week, four members of a California doctor mill were indicted in a $17 million workers’ comp fraud. This stunning scheme bilked the city of Los Angeles and 19 insurance companies. Joe Wheeler talks more about the fraud and how it exposes a weakness in the system. He rightly notes, “That this relatively small fraud provider ring offering obscure medical procedures could make off with millions of dollars before being caught should make anyone involved in workers’ comp benefits take a breath.” Note to employers: it’s not enough to think your insurer will manage everything – you need to take an active interest in managing and questioning claims, too.
In the line of duty – Louisiana flags are flying at half mast this week for two insurance investigators who were shot to death by an agent last week while investigating fraud. According to Insurance Times, investigators Kim Sledge and Rhett Jeansonne “…had gone to the Ville Platte office of suspended insurance agent John Melvin Lavergne to collect records. Lavergne shot the investigators and then killed himself.” Louisiana is now looking into whether fraud investigators should be able to carry guns.
Is the soft market finally hardening? – Joe Paduda talks about recent reports from Towers Perrin and Fitch Ratings pointing to firming work comp premiums. No, really!
Dollars for doctors – ProPublica has been featuring an ongoing series that investigates the financial ties between the medical community and the drug and device industry. You can follow the entire series from the above link. In addition to several feature stories, there were frequent updates in made in May, several of which discuss drug industry ties to medical societies. In October, ProPublica also rolled out a searchable database of physicians who have received drug money, gleaned from public disclosures of seven large pharma companies. For a sampling, here is Massachusetts.
Ferreting out the more obscure news… – Among all the informative and useful information he posts over at Comp Time, Roberto Ceniceros also manages to ferret out some of the quirkier workers comp stories. This week, he posted about Palin’s emails and the workers comp connection and last week, it was porn industry hazmat suits.
Confined space videos – WorkSafeBC produces a lot of great safety resources. Recently, a three-part video series on confined space came to our attention – worth checking them out. Part 1: Safe Yesterday, Deadly Today; Part 2: Test to Live; and Part 3: Rescue: Just Calling 911 Doesn’t Cut It.
Posts Tagged ‘shooting’
News roundup: Cavalcade of Risk, massive fraud scheme, investigator deaths, premium hardening & more
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011Health Wonk Review’s Spring Training edition & assorted news items
Thursday, March 17th, 2011Health Wonk Review – What do baseball and healthcare have in common? Find out – Glenn Laffel of Pizaazz hosts a fresh helping of the best of the health policy blogosphere: Health Wonk Review: Spring Training Edition
Does an anti-immigrant climate affect workers comp costs? – At Comp Time, Roberto Ceniceros discusses a recent news story in which Tom Hensley, president of Fieldale Farms Corp, testifies before the Georgia General Assembly about the detrimental impact that anti-immigration measures are having on his business. The impact included higher turnover and higher workers comp costs. Roberto is interested in hearing if anybody else has witnessed a similar trend of Latinos fleeing a state because of anti-immigrant sentiment and then claims trending upward – drop him anot if you have something to add.
Can you hear me now? Musicians and other workers who are exposed to loud music in their workplace are typically given short shrift in the occupational safety and health literature. Recent studies at nightclubs show that all employees (waiters, bartenders, DJs, etc,) were exposed to noise levels above internationally recommended limits and were at a higher risk of early hearing loss and tinnitus. The NIOSH Science Blog discusses music-induced hearing loss.
Giffords covered by work comp – Stephanie Innes of the Arizona Daily Star reports that federal workers’ comp is footing the recovery bill for Gabrielle Giffords and two of her employees who were shot in January. Because they were working, it’s an on-the-job injury. The federal law has no cap on medical payments, which is fortunate since the story reports that, “The Brain Injury Association of America says inpatient rehabilitation costs can range from $600 to $8,000 a day depending on services, and outpatient rehabilitation can cost $600 to $1,000 a day.”
Shrinking employer appetite for RTW? – Joe Paduda looks at how the economy may impact workers comp in 2012. Is higher severity in the offing? Joe talks about why that might be the case.
What makes a good claims organization? – At PropertyCasualty360, Carl Van, president and CEO of the International Insurance Institute, Inc., has posted the first in a three-part series on The Five Standards of Great Claims Organizations. See how your organization or your vendor stacks up.
Complex care – the folks at TMS continue to demonstrate that in complex care cases, the devil is in the details – and those details may be impeding an injured worker’s recovery and costing you money. See Pressure mapping: The underwear case for another example of how a small problem can become a big one.
Cool tool – Calculate your injury and illness incidence rates for your organization and compare them with national, state-specific, or industry-specific averages: Incidence rate calculator and comparison tool
Jobs of yesteryear – Ptak Science Books features a series of photos of Pennsylvania Coal Boys on the job in 1895 excerpted from an issue of Scientific American.
Japan – HR Web Cafe has posted various resources, including options for donations. The interactive before and after satellite images are very dramatic, giving some sense of scope.
In the Midst of Mayhem
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011A deranged man with a high-powered handgun in Tucson, Arizona, has killed six people and wounded many others. We will never really understand what drives an individual to plan and execute this kind of action, just as we cannot fathom why a man (or woman) would in the name of religion strap explosives to their bodies and kill themselves and as many innocent victims as possible. Belief systems are powerful motivators; demented beliefs can bring about appalling results. In these trying times, as the poet Yeats put it, “everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.”
Today we limit our meditation to the role of workers compensation in this incidence of mayhem. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was holding an informal “Congress on the Corner” gathering outside an ironically named Safeway Supermarket, when Jared Loughner walked up behind her and shot her in the head at point blank range. Somehow, she has survived to this point. One of her aides, Gabe Zimmerman, was killed. For what it’s worth, both are covered by workers comp, as they were “in the course and scope of employment.” A number of Giffords’s volunteers were also injured: their medical bills will likely be covered by comp, but they probably will not receive any indemnity benefits. Innocent bystanders are on their own: whether employed or not, their jobs did not bring them to that fateful location.
Federal Judge John Roll, who was killed, is a special case. The justice department will try to prove that his attendance at the event was an official act: that rather than just casually dropping by to see his friend, Rep. Giffords, he was “in the course and scope of employment” when he left his nearby office to attend the meeting. Why? It is surely not workers comp that concerns the feds; they want to include the murder of Judge Roll in the federal charges against Loughner and can only do so if the judge was technically on the job at the time he was assassinated. (Ironically, the judge had received death threats due to recent rulings.)
The Politics of Mayhem
Some have drawn a direct link between Loughner’s actions and the inflammatory rhetoric of recent political campaigns. When politicians talk of “second amendment solutions” to ideological differences, they are referencing guns. By placing a cross-hair image over an opponent’s photo, they raise the specter of assassination. Based upon the limited evidence of Loughner’s web postings, his actions are likely the result of internal demons. His links to the real world were tenuous at best. He may have thought his actions were political, but like his brethren the suicide bombers, any intended political message is subsumed and ultimately obliterated by sheer madness.
This is by no means the first time that humanity has been confronted with such images of meaningless depravity. Yeats published “The Second Coming” in 1920, just a couple of years after the end of the first world war – the “war to end all wars.”
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
There was much anarchy then, much anarchy to follow in the dark days of the second world war and, alas, much anarchy in our time.
Health Wonk Review and other workers comp news notes
Thursday, August 19th, 2010Joe Paduda is the man of the moment. His Managed Care Matters blog is worth a regular perusal for the informed commentary he offers about the medical side of workers comp. Today, there’s twice as much reason to visit because he’s the host of this week’s Health Wonk Review, in which the focus is on implementing health care reform. Check out this biweekly best of the health policy blogosphere!
Violence on the job – This week, The Hartford Courant posts that the total work comp payout for the shooting at Hartford Distributors could set a record. The company’s workers’ compensation insurer is The Hanover Insurance Group. Reporter Matthew Sturdevant notes that families of deceased and injured workers have one year from the Aug. 3 shooting to file workers’ compensation claims and discusses state benefit levels. (See our related posting from last week about the aftermath of the shooting in Connecticut. )
In another corner of the world, other workers were homicide victims. The New York Times offers a tribute to 10 medical workers who were killed while on a mission to provide aid to remote Afghanistan villages that generally don’t have access to medical care. Workers included 6 U.S. medical personnel and humanitarian workers, one German, one Briton and two Afghans.
Volunteer firefighter case – The Chicago Tribune reports on a recent Iowa court finding in a dispute between two insurers which ruled that a volunteer firefighter must be officially summoned to duty to be covered by workers’ comp. Justin Fauer died while trying to rescue his boss from a manure pit. In addition to being a farm worker at the farm where he died, Fauer was also a volunteer firefighter. According to the report, “The farm’s insurance company, Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Company, paid the claim but sought for it to be shared by the fire department’s company, Traveler’s Insurance Company, claiming Fauer also responded as a firefighter.” The Iowa Supreme Court upheld a district court decision that “…a volunteer firefighter cannot be summoned to duty by circumstances, but can only be summoned by the fire department or some other official channel.”
Deadline reminder to 9-11 recovery workers – Ground Zero workers must register by September 13 of this year to be eligible for future worker’s compensation benefits if they are sick or should become sick as a result of 9/11 exposure. Less than half the estimated 100,000 volunteers and workers who are eligible to register have done so. Authorities urge workers to register as a precaution. Joel Shufro of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health says that “”You don’t have to experience symptoms to file for this …You may never use it. We are seeing so many workers now developing symptoms and some are getting worse. So this is a very protective measure, safety net, so people who do get sick in the future will have protection.”
Popcorn Lung – Richard Bales of Workplace Prof Blog posts that an Illinois jury has awarded $30.4 million to a plant worker suffering severe lung disease from diacetyl. See more from on the popcorn lung case from the Joplin Globe.
BP agrees to pay for safety violations at Texas City refinery –
Liz Borowski of The Pump Handle reminds us that before BP became synonymous with the Gulf oil disaster, it’s prior “claim to fame” was the 2005 Texas City refinery disaster that killed 15 workers. When OSHA conducted a 2009 follow-up investigation, it issued $50.6 million in failure-to-abate citations, plus $30.7 million for 439 new willful violations it identified. BP had disputed these violations, but last week, agreed to pay the entire $50.6 million.
The aftermath of a CT tragedy
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010Yesterday was a day of remembrance for the victims of last week’s horrifying shootings at Hartford Distributors in Connecticut – our hearts go out to the family, friends, and coworkers of the deceased. Their lives will be forever changed and imprinted by this terrible event.
In chilling testimony minutes before death by his own hand, we hear the shooter in the deadly rampage calmly relaying his motive to a police dispatcher: “This place right here is a racist place…They’re treating me bad over here. And treat all other black employees bad over here, too. So I took it to my own hands and handled the problem. I wish I could have got more of the people.”
Omar Thornton’s murderous acts left eight coworkers dead and two grievously wounded. The horrifying massacre brought to mind another racially-motivated workplace-based mass murder, the 2003 shooting at a Lockheed Martin plant in Meridian, Miss., which left 6 dead and 8 wounded. Unlike last week’s shooting for which there were few if any advance clues or hints, the killer in Meridian had left a trail of violent threats and behaviors. Many who knew or had worked with Doug Williams feared and even predicted that his threats would culminate in some terrible event.
Whether racism was a trigger in the Connecticut case or not seems a moot point. Even if it were true that racism occurred, as alleged by the family of the shooter, that would not justify such a heinous and wildly disproportionate reaction. Company and union officials deny the allegations of racism and say that no such grievances had been filed or were on record. Yet Thornton’s call and the allegations will likely play a factor as lawyers for the victims seek damages. If victims seek any redress beyond workers compensation, they will face a high hurdle. When litigation is successful at piercing the exclusive remedy shield, it often involves employer misconduct that is highly egregious.
In 2005 and again in 2008, courts barred tort claims for Lockheed victims and upheld workers compensation as the exclusive remedy. Plaintiffs felt they had a strong case and sued Lockheed on the basis of having been deprived of civil rights. They cited a 2004 EEOC report, which stated: “(Lockheed) was aware of the severity and extent of the racially charged and hostile environment created by Mr. Williams, which included threats to kill African-American employees,” the determination by the EEOC’s Jackson office said. “(Lockheed’s) reaction to those threats against African-American employees was inadequate and permitted the racially charged atmosphere to grow in intensity, culminating in the shooting of 14 individuals.”
We noted then and note again now that, while often an imperfect and unsatisfying system, workers comp generally holds up as the exclusive remedy in such cases.
Can employers inoculate against such events?
While most workplace risk can be managed and risk mitigation strategies can be adopted to eliminate or minimize hazards, when it comes to the human heart and mind, preventive strategies can be less certain. There are certainly best practices that can be put in place, predictive profiles and warning indicators that can be consulted, and good hiring and supervisory practices that can be enacted.
Connecticut attorney Daniel Schwartz has been following this event and others on his blog. He recalled another terrible CT event on the 10 year anniversary of the 1998 Lottery headquarters shooting, which claimed the lives of four supervisors. Schwatz has revisited the topic of workplace violence on more than one occasion, offering best practice tips and resources for employer vigilance. In light of the recent tragedy, he asks if there are any lessons to be learned from evil. He concludes:
“Despite all the guidance and advice that can be given, the awful truth is that there really is no way to prevent tragedies like this from ever occurring. An employer can do everything “right” and yet still a rampage ensues by someone committed to carrying out a terrible crime.
That’s not to say that employers should ignore the issue; they shouldn’t. But we also should be careful not to draw conclusions from an incident like this too.
Indeed, as we look for answers from this tragedy, perhaps its best to acknowledge that we can never truly understand what brings people to commit evil and that despite whatever efforts we might make, something like this will sadly happen again.”
Risk Management, Family Style
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010We have been following with increasing amazement the saga of Amy Bishop, the Harvard-educated biology professor who certainly is in touch with her rage, if not much else. She was involved in a year-long conflict with the University of Alabama-Huntsville over tenure. Sometime after receiving the final denial, she calmly taught a class and then attended a faculty meeting with 13 colleagues. Forty-five minutes into the meeting, she took out an unregistered automatic pistol and methodically shot six colleagues in the head, three of whom died. Had her gun not jammed, she might have succeeded in executing the remaining 7 people. After being forced out of the room, she calmly called her husband and asked for a ride home.
The astonishing part of this story is that she had apparently already committed a cold-blooded murder. In 1986 she killed her younger brother with a blast from a shotgun. In what now wreaks as a coverup, the incident was classified as an accident: she claimed that she was attempting to remove the shells from the shotgun and accidentally drilled her brother. Sounds reasonable, except that she had already discharged the gun in her bedroom – no one in the family heard the blast (just Amy being Amy?). She was, coincidentally, in the middle of an argument with her brother. As we have now all learned, you definitely do not want to get on Amy’s bad side.
Her mother, claiming to have witnessed the shooting, upheld Amy’s version of the event. Mom, conveniently, was a politically connected official in the local town. Amy was released into the custody of her parents (enjoying, we presume, her new status as an only child). The investigative report ignored the utter implausibility of the entire story: the incoherent sequence of events, Amy’s evident rage, her fleeing the house with the gun and subsequent threatening of people on the street.
Defending the Indefensible Self
Here’s the risk management part: Amy’s father bought the shotgun after someone allegedly broke into the house. (There is no mention of any police record of this earlier incident.) Dear old dad kept the shotgun in the bedroom, with the shells conveniently laid out on top of a dresser. Amy, a brilliant scientist, but, she would have us believe, mechanically inept, took down the gun and put in the ammunition. (Why? no one bothered to ask.) She “accidentally” discharged the gun into the ceiling. Oops, how did that happen? Then she carries the gun downstairs and asks for help in unloading it. Her brother walks into the kitchen. The rest, as they say, is history as written by the (cruel) victors.
Twenty four years later, Amy practices shooting at a firing range. Her husband does not ask where she got the gun or why she wants to learn how to shoot it. He apparently has no clue what she is planning to do. He claims that he is “no psychologist” – and who could possibly argue with that? When he finally gets to talk to his homicidal wife, secure in a jail cell, she asks if the kids have all done their homework. From executing colleagues to worrying about homework. Who could possibly know what is going on in the mind of this brilliant, demented woman? And how could you possibly hold her parents accountable for enabling this monster and letting her loose upon an unsuspecting world?
Turkey Shoot
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009William Wehnke, 51, claims to have spotted a wild turkey in his field in rural Annsville, New York (population 3,000). He took aim and fired at the turkey and managed to hit Matthew Brady, a workers comp investigator, who happened to be crouching in the field, dressed in camouflage. Brady was apparently performing surveillance on Wehnke, who is collecting workers comp benefits for an unspecified injury. Whatever his disability, Wehnke is obviously capable of operating a shotgun.
Local authorities are not buying Wehnke’s story about the turkey. He’s been arraigned on a three-count grand jury indictment that includes felony second-degree assault and unlawful manner of taking. He is even charged with using inappropriate ammunition for hunting turkeys. Wehnke is in a lot of trouble for his little turkey shoot.
Investigator Brady was hit in the side, back and legs. He underwent surgery and presumably filed his own workers comp claim for what is surely a work-related – if highly unusual – disability.
Images – Lasting and Otherwise
I could not help but think of the other Mathew (sic) Brady, the 19th century photographer whose iconic images of the Civil War still resonate with us. As pathetic as investigator Brady’s situation is, his earlier namesake fared even worse. After the Civil War, Mathew Brady found that war-weary Americans had little interest in purchasing photographs of the bloody conflict. Having risked his fortune on his Civil War enterprise, Brady lost the gamble and fell into bankruptcy. His negatives were neglected until 1875, when Congress purchased the entire archive for $25,000, which might sound like a lot, but was not even enough to cover Brady’s debts. He died in 1896, penniless and unappreciated. In his final years, Brady said, “No one will ever know what I went through to secure those negatives. The world can never appreciate it. It changed the whole course of my life.”
The world may ultimately take little note of the suffering of the other Matthew Brady, wounded as he crouched in that desolate Annsville field. His life, too, has been significantly changed. But he at least will benefit from the wonders of modern medicine and the cushion of weekly indemnity, until he once again pursues his craft as a comp investigator. But the next time he is asked to don camouflage, he just might want to take a pass.
A Firefighter Fights Back
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009Over the past year, we blogged about a couple firefighters who abused the workers comp system. First there was the muscular Albert Arroyo, a Boston firefighter who participated in body building competitions, while collecting comp for a work-related disability. (Due to adverse publicity, he eventually lost both his job and his disability pension.) Then there was triathlete Christina Jijjawi, who parlayed a thumb injury into temporary total disability, during which she swam, cycled and ran for glory. Yes, I know, she was simply having an exceptionally good day.
Albert and Christina give firefighters a bad name. So it’s a pleasure to introduce you to Scott Miller, an apparatus operator with the LA fire department. He not only restores the good name to firefighters; he is an inspiration to any and all who believe in returning injured workers to productive employment.
Answering the Call
Seventeen years ago, in the middle of the Rodney King riots, Scott was racing toward a fire when a vehicle pulled along side his hook and ladder truck and fired a handgun. A bullet entered Miller’s cheek angled down through his body and severed a carotid artery in his neck. Given the quick response of his fellow firefighters, doctors were able to save his life, but a blood clot on the brain had left him paralyzed on the left side and unable to speak. (By the way, the shooter got 16 years – a bargain, considering that Miller “got” life.)
Miller was in rehab for over a year. He overcame the speech and many of the mobility problems, but never recovered fine motor skills in his left hand. He knew he could never do the physically demanding work of fighting fires, but he was determined to make it back to work. So he joined the Fire Prevention Bureau, where he eventually became a captain in charge of a crew that inspects commercial buildings.
He says of his prevention role: “It’s an area of work that I’ve come to respect. I realized that I had to move on and refocus on the more important things of life, that I can’t drag my dream with me until it becomes a nightmare ruining other positive things in my life.”
One of the ironies of this story circles back to Albert Arroyo. He, too, worked in the prevention bureau, but he used the excuse of a questionable injury to go out on disability, so he could pursue his dream of winning a body-building competition. Scott Miller’s dream was a little simpler and much more moving: he just wanted to be a firefighter again.
Thoughts in the aftermath of a tragedy
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007Our hearts go out to the Virginia Tech community in their time of mourning. What a terrible event and what a sad reminder that life is short and and can be snatched from us and those we love at any moment in the most unlikely of circumstances. Perhaps the best memorial we can offer to the deceased is to redouble our efforts to live with kindness and goodwill. That, and to reach out and hug our loved ones.
Be alert for your employees’ reactions to this event. A horrible incident like this can take a psychic toll on many – even those who are remote observers with no actual connection to the event can suffer emotional stress. This is particularly true for those who have previously been involved in episodes of violence. Events of this nature can rekindle or exacerbate post-traumatic stress disorder for people unrelated to the actual event. For others, it can bring repressed fear and anxiety to the surface. The continual media drumbeat 24/7 and focus on sensational details can add to general distress.
In the aftermath of this and other horrors, we seek to make sense of senseless events. It’s natural that many would look to find someone or something to blame beyond the deceased perpetrator. Right now, many are looking to the university’s security procedures and questioning why the campus wasn’t locked down after the first shooting. That’s a valid question. Of course, it’s easy in hindsight to say what should have been done, but the reality can be more complex, so we will need to wait for the investigation to answer this and many other questions. Certainly, Columbine delivered some hard lessons about how things could have been handled better to minimize loss of life. Recommendations from follow-on Columbine investigations have been adopted by law enforcement personnel nationwide, and may already have saved lives.
The psychology of security
Can a community of 30,000 ever be securely locked down against a deliberate and cunning killer? Bruce Schneier presents a sober look at the issues of risk management and security in his excellent article, The Psychology of Risk. He points out that security is both a mathematical reality that can be calculated and a feeling based on psychological reactions to both risks and countermeasures. In regard to the latter, he notes:
* People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks.
* People have trouble estimating risks for anything not exactly like their normal situation.
* Personified risks are perceived to be greater than anonymous risks.
* People underestimate risks they willingly take and overestimate risks in situations they can’t control.
* Last, people overestimate risks that are being talked about and remain an object of public scrutiny.
He goes on to present several examples of how and why people exaggerate some risks and downplay other risks, often in complete disregard to the mathematical realities. These perceptions influence our expenditures of time and effort:
“Why is it that, when food poisoning kills 5,000 people every year and 9/11 terrorists killed 2,973 people in one non-repeated incident, we are spending tens of billions of dollars per year (not even counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) on terrorism defense while the entire budget for the Food and Drug Administration in 2007 is only $1.9 billion?”
Noting that absolute security is an impossibility, Schneier frames the matter of relative security as a trade-off. We measure the time, expense and inconvenience of a given security measure against our perception of the risk. If that perception is faulty, it’s an irrational trade off that doesn’t do much to increase our security.
After a tragedy, emotion often prevails over dispassionate rationality. Thus we can’t carry shampoo on planes and we strip down to almost our skivvies in airports. Does that make us safer or does it just make us feel safer? It’s unlikely that any measures can be thorough enough to guard us from a random determined killer in our midst. Efforts might be better spent trying to determine the root causes of why there are so many random determined killers in our midst.
Schneier’s article presents interesting, well-framed ideas in well-written format. Whether you work in the business of risk or just live in a risky world, it’s worth a read.
