Arkansas pair get jail time for fraud

• The former owner of a Rogers-based medical supply and billing company in Arkansas and its former chief executive officer were both sentenced in U.S. District Court for their roles in leading a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and also private workers’ compensation insurers.
• U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks sentenced company owner Hunter Matthew Burroughs, 44, to four years’ incarceration in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, followed by a three-year term of supervised release.
• Judge Brooks sentenced company CEO Stephen Keith Andrews, 50, to two and a half years’ incarceration, followed by a three-year term of supervised release. Andrews has to pay a total of $2,353,591.84 in restitution, primarily to the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, and to pay a forfeiture money judgment of $508,838.57.
• Burroughs was ordered to pay a total of $3,525,219.77 in restitution, primarily to the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, to pay a forfeiture money judgment of $4,022,873.00 an additional $25,000 fine.
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Pennsylvania workers’ comp continues to decline

• The Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner approved the Pennsylvania Compensation Rating Bureau’s (PCRB) annual Loss Cost Filing, continuing a trend of decreasing workers’ compensation insurance costs, continuing a decades-long decline.
• The filing was approved on Jan. 23 and takes effect April 1.
• PCRB’s filing indicated an overall change of -7.88%, more than doubling last year’s decrease of 3.33%. The decrease in claim frequency is driving the downward trend, the 2023 figure of -6.1% following the -6.2% in 2022. Fewer large claims are another factor contributing to the decrease.
• Since 2015, the average payment per claim has dropped from $1,500 to $1,100. Prescription claims fell 60% since 2015, and opioid prescriptions are down 75% over the same span.
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88-year-old woman fined for workers’ comp infraction

• An 88-year-old woman in Palmyra, N.Y. was fined $5,000 because the state says she doesn’t have a workers comp policy for her in-home nurses.
• When her husband of seven decades went to a nursing home two years ago, Hazel started using their long-term care insurance to hire two nurses to come to her home.
• The Workers Comp Bureau sent her a letter and it fined her $5,000 because she doesn’t have a workers comp policy.
• State rules say workers comp is required if a person works in a home for 40 hours a week or more.
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Ohio plans to reduce workers’ comp rates

• Ohio’s private employers covered for workplace injuries by the state’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation are in line for another rate cut, the seventh straight reduction.
• The 7% reduction proposed to the agency’s board of directors last week would reduce premiums by $67 million for the fiscal year that starts July 1. The board will act on the proposal at its meeting on Feb. 23.
• The proposed 7% cut is a statewide average. The actual change a company would receive depends on multiple factors including claim history, the nature of the business, payroll, and participation in bureau programs.
• Only once since 2011 have rates for private employers gone up and that was in 2017 when rates rose 1.9%.
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