News

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.…

Injuries to body parts that are caused by repetitive motion, frequent exposure to sounds, chemicals or even vibrations are among the most perplexing in the workers compensation sector. Claims arising from cumulative trauma injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis and hearing loss, will likely rise given the aging workforce and an overall trend toward litigation, comp experts say. How…