Arizona makes changes to Ombudsman Office
- The Industrial Commission of Arizona made several changes to the ICA Ombudsman Office to boost the needs of injured workers, employers, insurance carriers, and workers’ compensation matters.
- The Ombudsman Office will now be a part of the ICA Legal Division and will consist of three individuals to provide responses to inquiries from injured workers regarding potential or pending workers’ compensation claims.
- The Ombudsman team will not provide legal advice but can refer individuals who need legal advice to an appropriate attorney referral service.
- The Ombudsman Office will facilitate communications between unrepresented injured workers, employers, insurance carriers, adjustors, and third-party administrators.
DEA seizes Deadly Doses of Fentanyl
- The Drug Enforcement Administration is announcing the seizure of over 50.6 million fentanyl-laced, fake prescription pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder this calendar year.
- The DEA Laboratory estimates that these seizures represent more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl.
- Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat facing this country.
- It is a highly addictive man-made opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin.
Claims still on the rise
- The NCCI released a new report that provides an overview of countrywide changes in lost-time claim frequency and severity.
- Countrywide frequency, including COVID‐19 claims, increased by nearly 3% in Accident Year (AY) 2021 after remaining relatively flat between 2019 and 2020.
- The frequency of lost‐time COVID‐19 claims decreased in 2021, while non‐COVID‐19 claims saw a resurgence in 2021 following the atypically large drop in frequency that occurred in 2020.
- The preliminary 2021 projections from NCCI’s Annual Insights Symposium, excluding COVID‐19 experience, indicated a slight decline in lost‐time claim frequency between 2019 and 2021.
Texas releases assessment of carriers’ performance
- The Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation released its 2022 Insurance Carrier Performance-Based Oversight (PBO) results.
- The DWC reviewed 136 insurance carriers with the following results and 41 had scores placing them in the high-performer tier.
- An additional 82 were in the average performer tier.
- And 13 had a score placing them in the poor performer tier.