NYC Corrections Department Paid ‘Excessive’ WC Claims

• New York City’s Commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation issued a report Monday on excessive workers’ compensation claims by City Department of Correction employees.
• In FY2024, the City paid more than $340 million for claims by DOC employees; in that same year, it paid just under $225 million for claims by employees of all other Mayoral agencies combined.
• During the last three complete fiscal years — 2022, 2023, and 2024 — New York City’s total expenses for workers’ compensation claims by DOC employees exceeded $1 billion.
• DOI began investigating this issue after several City agencies, including the City Law Department, reported concerns to DOI about the volume of workers’ compensation claims by DOC employees.
• Also on Monday, DOI and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the arrests of one current and two former DOC correction officers on charges of healthcare fraud, mail fraud and false statements related to healthcare matters stemming from alleged schemes to submit false and fraudulent worker’s compensation claims to the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board.
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Connecticut Legislators Act to Avoid 235% Rate Hike

• Legislation to avoid a 235% hike in workers’ compensation rates passed both the Connecticut House and Senate on Monday, as politicians sought to resolve a crisis triggered two months ago by a State Supreme Court decision that reinterpreted a line in a sweeping reforms law passed in 1993.
• Absent the move, public and private employers were facing additional estimated costs of more than $300 million a year, according to state and business analysis.
• In a March 18 decision, the Connecticut Supreme Court contradicted long-standing practice and a ruling by the Appellate Court, the high court found “the administrative law judge has the discretion to award a claimant who has reached maximum medical improvement other benefits under the Workers’ Compensation Act, such as total or partial incapacity benefits.”
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Maine Firefighters Cancer Claims See Limited Success

• Maine’s cancer law is supposed to make it easier for firefighters to get workers’ compensation, but since the law went into effect, only 35% of claims have been paid, according to a local media investigation.
• Portland’s WMTW television news used Maine’s Freedom of Access Act and that found that nearly everyone who places a claim faces an uphill battle.
• Since this law went into effect in 2009, 98% of firefighters with cancer-related workers’ comp claims had the initial claims denied.
• The firefighters’ cancer presumptive law covers 11 types of cancer.
• For those working as a firefighter for at least five years and can attest that that don’t have a family history of cancer or other significant exposures, the workers’ compensation board is to assume that the cancer resulted from their job since data has found firefighters to be at a higher risk of cancer than the general population, according to the report.
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