Long-term health issues following a COVID-19 diagnosis will likely affect workers compensation claims acceptance, management and disability indefinitely, experts say. Under the catch-all phrase “long COVID,” symptoms include fatigue, chest pain, shortness of breath, joint or muscle pain, and difficulty concentrating. At least one study (see box) found 55 possible long-term effects of COVID-19. “Navigating a patient through long COVID…
Just when it looks like litigators are finally ready to leave companies like Uber Technologies and Lyft alone, POW! These outfits and their investors get blindsided. On Friday, Aug. 20, a California state judge ruled that Proposition 22 is unconstitutional. Prop 22, which was approved by the state’s voters in November, allows Uber and Lyft drivers to remain contractors rather…
It’s been about 10 months since Kary Martin caught COVID-19 from a patient who had a false negative. And since then, she hasn’t worked. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Martin served primarily as a respiratory therapist in a newborn intensive care unit. But with her skills in high demand as more and more COVID patients flooded the Sacramento-based hospital where…
A central Illinois grain-handling cooperative exposed workers to serious engulfment hazards when soybeans collapsed inside a Monticello bin and engulfed an employee up to their waist, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration alleges. An OSHA investigation by the at Topflight Grain Cooperative Inc. found that two workers were clearing the bin of crops and debris when…
An insurer would normally have been obligated to defend a company that was an additional insured under its coverage, but is off the hook in a case involving a worker who fell to his death from a roof because of the settlement in the underlying litigation, a federal appeals court said, in a divided ruling. An Illinois warehouse operator contracted…
COVID-19 did not delay medical treatment for workers’ compensation claimants, but did decrease the amount of emergency care and other services provided to injured workers, a study released by the Workers’ Compensation Institute concludes. Research by WCRI economist Olesya Fomenko found that there were no noticeable delays in medical treatment for injured workers when the first two quarters of 2019…
A new study from the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) investigates patterns of medical care access and utilization that are specific to workers’ compensation during the first quarters of 2020 to understand how the timing and delivery of medical treatment were impacted by the pandemic. “In our previous work, we examined the effect of the spread of COVID-19 along with…
The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act provides for a bunch of benefits that have to be provided and one benefit that can be provided but doesn’t have to. In simpler terms, if you are hurt at work in Illinois, your employer has to be for your time off of work and 100% of your medical care. No co-pays, nothing out of…
Among the havoc dished out by COVID-19 emerged two major hits on workers’ comp: A significant drop in net premiums written and presumptions covering workers that contracted the virus. That’s according to Jeff Eddinger, senior division executive at the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), who tells PropertyCasualty360.com: “Specifically, net written premiums dropped 10% for calendar year 2020. This was…
A man who developed iron deficiency anemia failed to show his condition was caused by repetitive exposure to hazardous chemicals in the workplace. In Balensiefen v. Illinois Workers Compensation Commission, the Illinois Appellate Court, Third District in Ottawa on Monday affirmed an arbitrator’s ruling that the worker failed to show a causal connection to his condition and the workplace. John…
