Bill Advances to Allow PA, NP Treatment Via Federal WC

• The Improving Access to Workers’ Compensation for Injured Federal Workers Act (HR 618) has unanimously passed the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, with changes authorizing physician assistants to provide treatment and oversee care for federal workers injured on the job.
• Under current policy, federal employees cannot get treatment from PAs and nurse practitioners for care provided by federal workers’ compensation, or FECA, following injuries sustained on the job.
• If the bill becomes law, physician assistants treating federal workers under WC claims would be allowed to diagnose medical conditions, certify injury and extent of disability, and oversee patient treatment and care, in coordination with state law and regulations.
• The bill now heads to the House Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
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Canada Likely to Expand Firefighters Occupational Disease Coverage

• Canada’s Workers’ Compensation Act is likely to be expanded in October with the addition of six forms of cancer prevalent among firefighters.
• Other amendments could update privacy provisions, simplify the medical review panel process, and increase the permanent functional impairment award.
• The Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board in 2019 expanded firefighter’s presumptive coverage of occupational diseases to include: primary-site prostate, skin, breast, cervical and ovarian cancers, as well as multiple myeloma.
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Insurtech Clara Analytics Debuts AI for Suspicious WC Claims

• Clara Analytics has launched a fraud detection product that taps the tech firm’s AI platform and large workers’ compensation datasets for deeper analysis of suspicious claims.
• The Sunnyvale, California insurtech said millions of case details, billing records, medical transcripts and legal demand letters are analyzed to uncover fraud.
• “The workers’ compensation industry has a significant gap in fraud identification capabilities. CLARA Fraud mines workers’ compensation claims data to spot behavior that wouldn’t otherwise be apparent,” said Heather H. Wilson, Clara CEO, in a statement.
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Yale Regulation Journal Warns on AI Tools Misuse in Workplace

• Artificial intelligence tools applied to improve worker health and safety, among other applications, could be used by employers for anti-union purposes, according to a new article in the Yale Journal on Regulation.
• Author Bradford J. Kelley, a shareholder in the law firm Littler Mendelson, wrote that the Biden Administration’s 2023 “executive order regarding AI reflected the pro-union focus of the administration.”
• He argues that the National Labor Relations Board, as “the most active agency attempting to address AI allegedly being used by employers for anti-union purposes,” fails to account for the legitimate business purposes of AI tools, including enhancing workplace health and safety.
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