California takes action
- The Department of Industrial Relations Division of Workers’ Compensation and DIR’s Anti-Fraud Unit suspended 178 medical providers during the first eight months of 2022.
- These providers are suspended from the workers’ compensation system when convicted of fraud, suspended from the Medicare or Medicaid programs, or have lost their license.
- Since 2017, a total of 649 providers have been suspended from participating in California’s workers’ compensation system.
- DWC has also initiated new lien consolidation cases estimated at $75 million for those providers that were convicted of a fraud-related crime in 2022.
Charges dropped in workers comp case
- The charges were dropped against three people accused of defrauding the state’s compensation insurance fund to save more than $127,000 in workers compensation insurance premiums.
- Troy Williams, 49, of Angels Camp, Nanci Morman, 68, of Somerset, and John Allison, 63, of Rocklin, were arraigned on multiple felony counts of insurance fraud.
- A joint investigation revealed that the three allegedly conspired together to illegally lower their company’s workers’ comp insurance premiums and to defraud the State Compensation Insurance Fund.
- El Dorado Superior Court Judge Mark Ralphs dismissed the charges during the fourth week of a jury trial.
Goodyear employee killed
- An employee at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Topeka, Kansas, was killed after suffering injuries in an incident.
- Deputies were called shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday to the plant, where they learned Tim Cole, age 59, had sustained life-threatening injuries while working.
- The man was taken by American Medical Response ambulance to a Topeka hospital, where he was pronounced deceased.
- The circumstances of the incident remained under investigation.
More workers comp rate. decreases?
- The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation held a hearing on a proposal that would lead to an average 8.4-percent decrease in workers’ compensation insurance rates for 2023.
- The National Council on Compensation Insurance submitted the proposal in late August.
- If approved, it would continue a series of workers’ compensation rate cuts in recent years.
- Regulators last year approved an average of 4.9-percent decrease for 2022.