Reform From Within; Employers Take Control

Sunday, June 22, 2003 | 0

This is part 1 of a 5 part series for employers by workers' compensation consultant Linda Benoit on taking charge of workers' compensation reform from an employer perspective.

The Problem - Looking in The Wrong Place For The Solution

The workers' compensation system is in crisis. That's old news. This system has been defined as in some stage of crisis since 1989, when the first sweeping reform act was written and placed into law on 01/01/90. Since then there have been numerous attempts by subsequent administrations to "reform" the system.

Most of the reforms have involved the imposition of more departments, paperwork, deadlines and forms. Doctors have been given more paperwork, adjusted fee schedules and revolving door presumption as well as new acronyms which are designed to certify their neutrality and their qualifications to perform the same services they have always performed. Departments have been created, dismantled, renamed, re-staffed; vocational rehabilitation has been re-vamped, rejuvenated, and rehabilitated. Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi's latest reform hit list includes changing medical fee schedules, shortening claim review times, using generic drugs, checking claims-handling standards, (now there's a sweeping gesture!), restructuring penalties, (again), looking into fraud, (again), and the beat goes on and on and on...

Just about every area in this beleaguered system has been addressed at one time or another, yet we are still in crisis. What gives?

The one area that has stayed out of the path of the reform radar scanner is the very heart of the workers' compensation system: the employer-employee relationship.

Since nearly the turn of the 20th Century, employers and employees have been playing out the work injury scenario by pretty much the same script while the machinations of lawmakers, administrators, media, physicians, attorneys, insurance executives, vocational rehabilitation people, and as many others as can get their two cents in, have created an elaborate and expensive labyrinth from which there seems no escape for the poor employer who is now the unwitting benefactor.

Ironically, the employer and the employee are about the only players who have not had any meaningful input into the shifting sands in work comp and they have been hurt the most. The system is now in shambles. The employers have to pay for it and the injured workers are being blamed for it.

I call foul and in our series we will explore what I view as the problem, and what is the solution: 2) Problem - Employer Passes Responsibility To The Carrier; 3) Problem - The Wrong People Become Adversaries; 4) The Solution: Employers, Take More Control of Your Work comp - Reform From Within! And, 5) Results of Reform From Within - Maintenance of Employer-Employee Relationship.

Article series by employer's workers'compensation consultant Linda Benoit. Linda has been in the Work Comp field for 20 years as a paralegal, in medical administration and as a Work Comp Coordinator and has worked as a consultant since 1989. Contact Linda at lindaraeb@earthlink.net, or by phone at (530)432-4397.