Same-level slips and falls cost U.S. businesses an estimated $10.5 billion annually in direct workers' compensation expenses, positioning them as the nation's second-most costly workplace injury, according to the Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index.
With 2.5 million injury and illness cases reported in private industry in 2024, knowing how to navigate the aftermath of workplace injuries is essential.
There are basic concepts about workers’ compensation that everyone within an organization should know so that everyone works together toward getting the injured employee and the company back to 100% or, at least, to pre-injury status.
Amazon operates on-site emergency clinics, named AmCare, for workers. The idea is that employees can go to those facilities, which have on-staff, licensed emergency medical technicians and injury prevention specialists, and get treated faster without needing to travel off-site.
As convenient as this may sound, however, reports suggest there are some issues with that approach. Here are some of them.
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.
The workers’ compensation system can be used for more than processing work-related illness or injury insurance claims. The data collected through this system provide valuable information to identify how these injuries and illnesses happen, so that they can be prevented.
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.
