Report: Third of Comp Claims for COVID Approved

Tuesday, July 28, 2020 | 0

Colorado employers and workers’ compensation carriers have admitted liability for about a third of claims for COVID-19, according to a report by the Denver Post.

Paul Tauriello
(wceducationconference.com)

The newspaper reports 1,970 claims for COVID-19 have been filed this year, a little more than 12% of the 16,000 total claims filed to date. The post reports 1,262 of the COVID-19 claims were denied, while 628 were accepted. Another 80 cases are pending, according to data the Post says was provided by the Division of Workers’ Compensation.

Paul Tauriello, director of the DWC, told the newspaper that COVID-19 claims are controversial.

“Early on, when it hadn’t quite hit Colorado and we had our first few patients, if you were an EMT or a firefighter or a hospital worker caring for one of those patients, and you got it and people on your team got it, that’s pretty clear it’s work-related,” the director said. “But once it starts spreading in the community, it’s really hard to say.”

Colorado lawmakers killed a bill this year that would have created a presumption that COVID-19 is a work-related disease for certain workers.