Post-pandemic issues for workers’ comp
- Challenges with COVID have provided an ongoing struggle with the worker’s compensation industry.
- Practitioners need to be seasoned and prepared for pursuing or defending COVID-19 cases.
- There are ways to establish claims and the methods are not mutually exclusive.
- A claimant can plead a COVID-19 diagnosis as a disease as an injury claim, while other language says the claimant can bring a claim under the occupational disease “catch-all provision.”
Inspector General conducting workers’ comp audit
- The Office of the Inspector General is conducting an audit to determine the financial impact of workers’ compensation and Public Disability Benefits (PDB) on the Social Security Administration’s Disability Insurance (DI) program.
- It found significant discrepancies between state workers’ comp and PDB data and SSA records, calling into question the data SSA uses to make DI benefit payments and workers comp determinations.
- The Inspector General reviewed data from California, Florida, Oregon, and Washington.
- It found that SSA’s records did not accurately include state workers’ comp data for 9,487 of 16,346 DI beneficiaries (58 percent) who received workers’ comp payments.
SwiftMotion getting acquired by Ninth Street
- Berkley, Calif.-based–SwiftMotion Inc, a provider of Ergonomic and safety risk assessment, has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Ninth Street capital partners.
- The deal is expected to close this month.
- SwiftMotion has performed accurate ergonomic risk assessments across a wide variety of industries such as warehousing, distribution centers, airport transit, automotive and healthcare facilities.
- “This enables us to expand our product offerings and address the need for more insights into workplace injuries and preventive methods using advanced technology,” Venkat Ramasamy, Co-Founder of SwiftMotion, said,
Cannabis firm fined after employee’s death
- OSHA fined Trulieve, a Holyoke, Mass. cannabis firm, after one of their employees died.
- Lorna McMurrey died of occupational asthma due to exposure to ground cannabis while working at Trulieve Holyoke, according to OSHA.
- OSHA found that employees in flower production were exposed to “occupational quantities of whole and ground cannabis, and … were not trained on the hazards involved in the cannabis grinding and production process.”
- OSHA cited the company for three violations and issued a fine of $35,219.