Supreme Court upholds previous decision
- Ohio’s Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed an attempt by more than 2,100 local governments to collect refunds from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation.
- The case stemmed from allegations of overpayments made more than a decade ago.
- The ruling is the latest to reject refunds of premiums to public employers. The BWC agreed to pay $420 million in refunds to private employers in 2014.
- In 2020, the court told the city of Cleveland that its attempt to recoup overpayments from the BWC belonged in the Court of Claims.
Several states mulling workers comp laws for firefighters
- Several state legislatures are considering workers’ compensation presumptions for firefighters and other first responders.
- These measures have the potential to impact the number of compensable claims and the ultimate cost of those claims.
- Many firefighters work for self-insured municipalities that are not required to report data to NCCI, so only a portion of firefighter claim history is readily available
- Many of the occupational diseases included in legislative proposals providing presumptive coverage to firefighters have long latency periods.
Doctor to pay more than $800,000 for workers comp fraud
- Dr. Robert Clay Smith was sentenced to 48 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release for workers comp fraud in Louisianan. ,
- He was also ordered to pay more than $800,000 to workers’ compensation insurers.
- Smith conspired with a Rogers-based company to dispense pain creams and patches to his workers’ compensation patients, for which he received a split of the profits.
- He admitted a company paid him 50 to 55 percent of the profits collected from successfully billing insurers, at markups of 15 to 20 times medication costs.
Lawn care worker fined for fraud
- A Kentucky man pleaded guilty to one count of theft, a fifth-degree felony, for collecting over $11,000 in disability benefits from the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
- Michael Strother, 36, owned and operated his business, Eastern Style Lawn Care LLC while receiving BWC benefits.
- The investigation found Strother was working for nine months and hid his work activity from BWC to continue collecting BWC’s temporary total disability benefits.
- The investigation into Strother consisted of multiple surveillances, including videos of Strother performing lawn care services without any apparent injury.