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An Illinois-based container shipping company faces proposed penalties of $156,038 after an employee suffered a leg amputation and crushed pelvis when he fell off and was then run over by a powered heavy-lift vehicle used to move and stack steel containers at the firm’s Chicago facility. The 30-year-old recent hire suffered the injuries after being allowed to ride unsecured on…

Health care workers’ exposure to COVID-19 most often comes from community spread, not their occupational activities, according to a study conducted by Emory University released Thursday. Researchers from Emory in Atlanta, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Rush University in Chicago and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed the antibodies of more than 24,000…

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories now account for more than a third of all drugs dispensed to injured workers, and just two NSAIDs account for two-thirds of prescription payments in that drug category, according to a report released Wednesday by the California Workers Compensation Institute. Oakland, California-based CWCI analyzed changes in the distribution of workers comp prescriptions and prescription payments in the state…

The renewal process for 2021 included several changes spurred by the pandemic, as companies changed workers’ job duties and insurers wanted to know more about what was being done to manage risks associated with COVID-19. Much depended on the type of business involved, said JoEllen Thelen, St. Louis-based middle market practice leader for the central region for Aon PLC. “With…

Workers’ compensation insurers aren’t getting the large aggregate volumes of COVID-related claims projected during the early months of the pandemic, but different data sources give varying readouts on developments for individual U.S. states and classes of workers. In fact, while claim frequencies are down for workers’ compensation overall with business shutdowns bringing lower numbers of non-COVID claims, and while the…