Visits by insurance loss prevention representatives to construction job sites can lead to fewer workplace injuries, according to a study by a Center for Construction Research and Training supported research team at the University of Minnesota released Wednesday.
The study looked at workers compensation claims and examined injuries to employees of 1,360 construction policyholders who obtained workers comp from a self-insured workers comp fund.
There was a significant reduction in risk of lost-time injury after a single contact from a loss prevention representative, the study found. One contact was associated with a 27% reduction of risk, two contacts with a 41% reduction of risk, and three or more contacts with a 28% reduction of risk, according to the study.
The study also found that these visits are often low cost and that the reduction in lost-time injuries reduced workers comp costs for policyholders and insurance companies.
More than 256,000 Texas workers suffered injuries or illnesses in 2015 that were covered by insurers at a cost of more than $328 million.
On Nov. 7 Texas Mutual Insurance, the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer, will offer a free seminar for big and small employers interested in learning more about the state’s workers’ compensation program and how to avoid risks and costs.
It’s called the Work Safe, Texas Summit, and it will run from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Wyndham El Paso Airport Hotel.
Doors open at 7:45 a.m. with a free breakfast.
And it’s not just for Texas Mutual policyholders, said Jeremiah Bentley, Texas Mutual’s vice president of marketing and customer engagement.
The company provides workers’ comp insurance for 48,000 businesses, or about 40 percent of the market in Texas.
“We just do workers’ compensation insurance, and we just do it in Texas,” he said.
Texas is the only state in the U.S. that doesn’t require employers to carry workers’ compensation coverage, but more than 80 percent of workers are covered by a policy.
There’s also the taking-care-of-the-employee thing because we cover all the medical related to an injury, and if they’re off work, we have wage-replacement benefits for them.” Businesses without workers’ compensation insurance tend to be small office operations or mom-and-pop businesses that don’t think they can afford insurance or don’t see themselves as needing it.
“But one injury can put those people out of business – that’s the risk they take,” Bentley said.
A Pennsylvania bill mandating a drug formulary for workers compensation that passed the state’s senate last week has been welcomed by insurer advocates but is opposed by trial lawyers, who say it’s an attempt to curb utilization review organizations.
936, passed Oct. 25 on a 34-16 vote, the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry would select a “nationally recognized, evidence-based prescription drug formulary appropriate for resolving issues related to drugs prescribed for or related to the treatment of work-related injuries, including, but not limited to, the type, dosage, and duration of prescriptions,” according to the bill’s latest text.
Formularies have long been used by medical insurers to control prescription costs by listing the drugs that insurers will cover.
The bill is an attempt to control the decisions of utilization review organizations through the cost of getting certified, said Larry Chaban, a Pittsburgh-based workers compensation attorney and member of the Pennsylvania Association for Justice, a trial lawyer organization.
The bill also does not address the issue of opioids and reduces physician choice, Mr. Chaban said.
“A formulary is going to deal not just with opioids.
But insurance trade associations, including the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania and the American Insurance Association, support the bill.
“What it does is bring a consistent and high quality of medical care to injured workers,” he said.
“One of them was limiting the cost of compound creams to 10% over the actual cost to the pharmacy, and we also offered an amendment that would require doctors to check the opioid registry before they wrote a prescription for opioids,” said Mr. Chaban.
936 will now go to the state House of Representatives.
And if the insurance industry is making healthcare decisions while being subsidized with billions of taxpayer dollars, Americans have a right to know what’s going on.
“A total of 58 participants across 26 federal, state, public and private organizations, including CMS, attended the event,” is all that an executive summary of the meeting says about the attendees.
Also unmentioned is a recent HFPP policy decision that allows insurers to share information about Medicare beneficiaries.
But the agency is moving ahead with plans for a new monitoring system to identify opioid “overutilizers” — physicians who prescribe high doses, patients who get them, and pharmacies that fill their prescriptions.
Connecticut companies could be in for a break on their workers compensation costs next year, after insurance carriers requested a 14.1 percent reduction on average in the “loss cost” formula which helps determine rates.
The National Council on Compensation Insurance’s request is subject to the approval of the Connecticut Insurance Department. Connecticut employers are required to carry workers compensation insurance, which can be used to cover both medical treatment for workplace injuries as well as pay for days people are unable to work.
NCCI also requested a 12.6 percent cut on average for the loss costs it charges companies that get workers compensation coverage through an assigned-risk pool, as a “market of last resort” in cases where they are unable to find affordable rates due to a higher risk of injuries in their workplaces.
For standard policies, office employers would see the biggest decline with a 17 percent average drop in the loss-cost portion of their rates, subject to wide variance depending on the carrier and policyholder. Retailers and other purveyors of goods and services would see the smallest reduction, at 12.5 percent.
In its filing, NCCI stated the frequency of lost-time workers compensation claims dropped “considerably” last year amid an overall downward trend. Average medical costs for cases rose $470 in 2015 or 2 percent to just under $27,800.
NCCI raised slightly the loss cost it charges companies to cover any incidents of terrorism, to 5 cents for every $200 of payroll from the current rate of 2 cents.
