Injured workers self-reporting anxiety and depression increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with numbers jumping “significantly” between 2019 and 2020 and not returning to pre-pandemic rates in 2022 as the pandemic waned, according to an industry trends report released Tuesday by Medrisk Inc. In 2019, 24.4% of injured workers reported they had anxiety, 19.8% reported depression and 14.8…
Less coordination of care was found to be a factor in injured workers who relied on “extended” physical rehabilitation post-injury, according to a study released Wednesday by the Workers Compensation Research Institute. According to WCRI, physical medicine services are commonly used in treating workers with lower back pain and other musculoskeletal injuries, and in recent years, there has been an…
Injured workers with low back pain whose injuries are covered by workers compensation insurers and employers reported the lowest improvements in function following physical therapy than patients covered by all other payment systems, according to study released Tuesday by the Workers Compensation Research Institute. The data used in the study was collected at admission and discharge from low back pain…
A bill that would limit awards for subsequent workplace injuries to the “same part of the spine” was introduced in the Illinois General Assembly on Tuesday. H.B. 2345 would amend the Workers’ Compensation Act, stating that “for purposes of computing compensation for an employee who had a prior compensated injury to the spine, the prior compensation shall be deducted from…
An Illinois grain cooperatives’ failure to make sure they followed required safety procedures contributed to how a 27-year-old worker suffered a partial amputation of his right leg when a paddle conveyor was left running when he and two other employees entered a soybean bin for cleaning. Investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration responded to…
Illinois lawmakers are considering an emergency temporary regulation that would limit how cumulative trauma workers compensation claims would affect insurance rates and includes language that holds previous employers liable. Introduced Friday, S.B. 1305 states that “(a)ny accidental injury, which results from repetitive or cumulative trauma and occurs within six months after the employee begins his or her employment shall not…
In January, the Workers Compensation Research Institute reported that comp claims with long COVID had higher-than-average medical payments and indemnity payments and longer durations of temporary disability than regular COVID-19 claims. “In particular, we found a nearly 10-fold difference in the average medical payment per claim,” WCRI researcher Bogdan Savych wrote in the report, which analyzed infections between March 2…
A district court should not have excluded an expert’s testimony, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in reinstating a case in which a forklift operator’s leg was amputated as a result of an accident. Adelaida Anderson was working as a forklift operator at a FedEx warehouse in Effingham, Illinois, in July 2017, when she hit a bump and fell out…
Illinois lawmakers on Monday introduced workers compensation bills that would affect compensability on cumulative trauma and work travel. H.B. 1543 would determine that an injury arose out of and in the course of employment only if the accident “significantly caused or contributed to both the resulting condition and disability.” The bill doesn’t define “significantly caused,” so it’s not clear how…
Nearly a dozen states as of late January had introduced legislation to expand or enhance workers compensation benefits for employees who suffer mental injuries by presuming they are suffered in the course of work. “The trend will continue,” said Brian Allen, Salt Lake City-based vice president of government affairs, pharmacy solutions, for Mitchell International Inc., a subsidiary of Enlyte Group….
