Grinberg: Good News from SCIF!

Monday, September 19, 2022 | 0

Who is ready for some good news for once?

Gregory Grinberg

Your humble blogger has some good news to share, but also some news that isn’t so great.

First the bad news — plans were in the works to completely eliminate the paid subscription for the blog and make it free for everyone. But, sadly, despite attending CAJPA with the best of intentions, your humble blogger’s gambit of betting all his money on black at the roulette wheel did not pay off. Sadly, my beloved readers will have to continue subsidizing my grandiose lifestyle with their monthly payments.

Now for the good news!

SCIF is reporting that it’s program to reduce opioid prescriptions is a resounding success: 82% reduction since 2014! The plan appears to focus on educating doctors and workers, reducing the initial prescriptions for opioids to a few days at a time, and peer reviewing prescriptions.

Despite all outward appearances, and the oath taken before the State Bar of California, your humble blogger is not only a lawyer but also a human being who is thoroughly pleased that concerted efforts have reduced the suffering — the real suffering — of injured workers. Avoiding addiction and returning to a productive life as victory conditions.

But, for those of us who have upgraded their hearts to abaci and who are primarily focused on advancing towards having a swimming pool of gold coins not unlike Scrooge McDuck, there’s good news for you, too!

Lower opioid abuse means lower costs of medical treatment, shorter periods of TD, fewer compensable psyche, depression, and suicide claims, and, of course, more successful returns to productive labor. As the kids used to say: win-freakin’-win!

We don’t often get good news in this industry. Your humble blogger very rarely does as the files to hit his desk aren’t the ones where everything is going great but the ones that need mitigation, or fraud is suspected, or the worst-case-scenario seems likely and some humble-blogger-magic might just help improve the outlook. Naturally, my outlook is going to be on the gloomier side.

Opioid abuse is a plague on this country and our workers comp system, and your humble blogger commends SCIF for its efforts to alleviate the symptoms.

Gregory Grinberg is managing partner of Gale, Sutow & Associates’ S.F. Bay South office and a certified specialist in workers’ compensation law. This post is reprinted with permission from Grinberg’s WCDefenseCA blog.