A report from Oregon shows that workers’ compensation costs are falling in Illinois, but a manufacturing group said employers here have yet to see any savings. The Illinois Trial Lawyers Association heralded a report this week from the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services that ranked Illinois workers’ compensation costs at the 22nd highest in the nation, down from…
There’s a problem on the road that has people in the bike community raising the alarms: It seems more people are getting hit and killed. Three separate central Indiana bike groups have come together to try to figure out how to fix what appears to be a problem that is not improving. Those groups include Bike Indianapolis, Bicycle Indiana and…
The payments for similar knee and shoulder surgeries performed in ambulatory surgery centers were lower compared with hospital outpatient departments in many study states, according to a study released Thursday by the Workers Compensation Research Institute. Researchers with the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based institute examined payments in 18 states in 2016, finding that in 14 of them payments for knee surgeries done…
Eugene Keefe argues that Senate Bill 904 lurks as an ever-greater disaster waiting to happen in relationship to doctors and hospitals across the state being able to get compensated in a timely manner. “Our concern is SB 904 would further increase litigation and concomitant employer costs in a system where Illinois already has what the Stat-Rats opine is the second…
A state appeals panel says a man won’t get a new trial in his lawsuit against the Hyatt Regency hotel in Chicago, saying a Cook County jury was not wrong in finding him 100 percent responsible for the injuries he says he suffered when he tripped and fell over a missing floor tile covered by carpet. In late October, a…
Today the Indiana Department of Labor released the state’s results from the 2017 Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses report, which measures incidents of nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses on an annual basis. Indiana’s nonfatal occupational injury and illness rate remains at the lowest in state history for the second year in a row, with an…
The Democrats winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives and of governorships and legislatures in multiple states in elections last week could result in improvements in health care access at the federal level and the passage of bills at the state level that could boost comp benefits for injured workers. “My initial reaction was to look at the states…
The Illinois Senate on Wednesday voted 55-1 to overturn a veto by Gov. Bruce Rauner that would amend workers compensation law to allow medical providers to charge insurers interest at a rate of 2% a month when bills are not paid promptly, among other changes. Specifically, S.B. 904, which passed both the state Senate and House in May and was…
The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed with an insurance agent’s argument that under state law insureds have two years from the date an insurance policy is issued to file suit against an insurance producer alleging that the policy sold to them is deficient. The high court’s ruling came in a case in which it overturned the finding of a state…
Workplace fatalities are on the rise, but new safety research is outlining the ways that a deep dive into could-happens, near misses and smaller, less serious incidents could help prevent on-the-job deaths. Referring to a pyramid to illustrate workplace incidents, with the relatively small number of fatalities at the top and droves of noninjury accidents at the bottom, a researcher…
