Potential disability implications of long COVID
- Dr. Michael Choo, in conjunction with NCCI, published the first of this two-part research regarding long COVID, which outlined the potential disability implications of long COVID on the workers’ compensation industry.
- The percentage of claims with long COVID in workers’ compensation was 24 percent.
- Twenty percent of nonhospitalized and 47% of hospitalized COVID-19 workers’ compensation patients developed long COVID.
- The average temporary disability indemnity benefit duration for long COVID patients was about 160 days for hospitalized patients and 95 days for non-hospitalized patients.
Policyholders get surplus
- The Workers’ Compensation Reinsurance Association is distributing a $35 million surplus to policyholders in Minnesota.
- Policyholders are the more than 100,000 employers in the state who had workers’ compensation premiums in 2020.
- Any policyholder whose portion of the distribution exceeds $15 will receive a check from the WCRA. Pre-notice letters will be mailed to recipients in October, with the checks to follow about a month later.
- The WCRA was created 42 years ago by the Minnesota Legislature to improve the system of providing workers’ compensation insurance at fair and reasonable rates to Minnesota employers.
An indictment filed over 1.2 million oxycodone pills
- A doctor, her staff, and a group of pharmacists had a $24 million drug ring out of a Brooklyn medical clinic that provided more than 1 million oxycodone pills with fake prescriptions, prosecutors said.
- The scheme operated out of the clinic of Dr. Somsri Ratanaprasatporn, a pediatrician and general practitioner, in East New York.
- She and her crew illegally gave out more than 11,000 prescriptions for oxycodone, adding up to over 1.2 million pills, prosecutors charged.
- Illegal dealers could have made more than $24 million selling the drugs.
Georgia firm cited after fatal fall
- An employee at East Coast Crawl LLC – operating as Crawlspace Medic of Savannah, Ga. — suffered fatal electrocution while digging a shallow drainage trench under a home.
- OSHA found that the remediation company might have prevented the incident by following the required safety standards.
- The 32-year-old lead repair technician came into contact with an electrical line on April 18, 2022, as they installed a drain to remove accumulating water.
- OSHA cited the company for not making sure to de-energize electrical lines before allowing employees to work and dig within the danger zone, and has proposed $31,284 in penalties.