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Are insurers required to reimburse for medical marijuana in workers compensation? That is one of the topics covered by Laura Kersey in an online article for the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI).
Kersey writes that insurers are increasingly receiving requests to reimburse for medical marijuana use for workers compensation treatment, and explains how that issue is complicated by the federal-state schism in the status of cannabis.
Based on 2014 published data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 261,930 private industry and state and local government workers missed one or more days of work due to injuries from falls on the same level or to lower levels1, and 798 workers died from such falls2.
The construction industry experienced the highest frequency of fall-related deaths, while the highest counts of nonfatal fall injuries continue to be associated with the health services and the wholesale and retail industries.
A health care system serving several communities in Kansas is enjoying sharply lower workers compensation premiums after reaching out to the Kansas Department of Labor (KDOL), Safety Assistance and Consultation Program, for help accessing and improving its workplace safety policies and procedures.
Community HealthCare System (CHCS) focuses on serving rural citizens.
One state’s successful strategies for reducing the number of injured workers at risk for opioid addiction will be shared with workers compensation experts from around the country at the upcoming Workers Compensation Research Institute’s (WCRI) conference in Boston. In 2011, the OBWC found that more than 8,000 injured workers were opioid-dependent for taking the equivalent of at least 60 mg a day of morphine for 60 or more days. By the end of 2017, that number was reduced to 3,315, which meant 4,714 fewer injured workers were at risk for opioid addiction, overdose, and death than in 2011.
Longer-term prescribing of opioids causes substantially longer duration of temporary disability among workers with work-related low back injuries, according to a new study from the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI). Temporary disability is time that workers spend away from work recovering from their work-related injuries.
Forcing OSHA to choose between focusing on enforcement or compliance assistance is “a false choice,” according to Dr. David Michaels, former assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health and current professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at The George Washington University in Washington.
A foot injury is, according to the Comp Pinkbook, the eighth most common workers’ compensation injury in Maryland. (The Comp Pinkbook represented a study of over a quarter million comp claims that had some kind of permanency award from the period of 1/1/11 to 6/30/12. The book is for sale at Amazon.com.)
One sign that anti-OSHA conservatives are getting nervous about articles (and television appearances) highlighting the declining number of OSHA inspectors are articles questioning whether government plays a useful role in protecting workers. In this case, the Reason Foundation, which “advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law,” has concluded that reducing the number of OSHA inspectors has no effect on workplace safety.
A former OSHA inspector who worked at the 9/11 Ground Zero site, now diagnosed with a terminal 9/11 illness, is battling with the Labor Department for his workers’ compensation benefit, according to an article in the New York Daily News.
Nurse Carmelita Kinjo was eager to begin her night shift in the intensive care unit at the Veterans Administration hospital where she worked. As her thoughts turned to the evening that lay ahead of her and the patients she would tend to, she slipped on a wet floor. Someone had forgotten to replace the sign warning that it was wet. Kinjo fell backward, hitting her head and slamming into a wall.
