Archives for March 2020

Workers Comp Webinar Mini-Guide Prep – Other Ideas

March 26, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

Workers Comp Webinars – Other Suggestions

I published an article on Workers Comp Webinars and how to have the best online experience two days ago. The blog readers sent me a few article links. One similar article I found was great, but then it disappeared from the Google rankings.

To fill in the missing article’s space, I decided to use a Consumer Reports article that had the same suggestions.

One of the most popular suggestions was not to crank up the microwave while you are on a webinar or video meeting. The one tip I disagree with in the article is switching everything to 5 GHz. 5GHz struggles with penetrating walls and other obstructions.

My suggestion to move closer to your router or better yet, hook a CAT5 cable from your notebook or desktop directly to the back of your wireless router. Windows 10 should set up the connection quickly. The back of your wireless router should look similar to this one.

Public Use License – FelipeTD~enwiki

You want to hook into the LAN slots, not the WAN slot.

You may have CAT5 cables in your home already instead of rushing to the local computer supply store. The ends of the cable look like this for reference.

Wikimedia Public Use License – Fo0bar

One caveat is that you may need to turn off your computer’s wireless access if you are hooking directly into the router. You will be amazed at the speeds versus the wireless connection.

My CAT5 direct connection doubled my speed. Remember, when it comes to webinars, there is only so much data that the webinar provider can output. The same goes for multi-participant video chats.

I presented a 1.5-hour webinar using one of the popular platforms for a customer last November. I had my notebook attached directly to the office’s wireless modem for the fastest speed possible with approximately 10 participants. I had no problems with the webinar.

I still have the same wireless router that I bought on Woot! two years ago for less than $50. You do not have to spend a ton of money on a wireless router, or you may be renting from your ISP, which is OK, but more of an expensive option.

Check out my recent eBay search for routers – the first one up has 4.5 star rating for less than $50.

Clark Howard always recommends that you call (or chat) your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to see if you can get more speed. ISP’s will often upgrade you for little or no extra fees if they think you are going to switch providers.

If you feel this is too techie, then your current settings may work fine. Good luck with your Workers Comp webinars.

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Your Mini-Guide For Workers Comp Webinars – Be Prepared

March 24, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

This Mini-Guide For Workers Comp Webinars Will Save You Headaches Later

My IT background made me think of creating a Mini -Guide to Workers Comp Webinars. You can use this as preparation for attending any webinar.

bandwidth graph workers comp mini-guide for workers comp webinars

Public Use License – Matthieu James Author

If you are using a work computer, check with your IT department before instituting anything on this Mini-Guide For Workers Comp webinars list. Many work-based computers have sets of software that may cause problems in a very small % of users.

If you are not familiar with the following suggestions – do not do them, or look at your online manual for your modem and ISP (Internet Service Provider).

OK, so many of the conferences have now turned into webinar-type symposiums such as the recently posted NCCI Conference on May 12th. With a large number of participants, you are going to need all the bandwidth your home system can muster.

Business people using laptop Mini-guide for workers comp webinars during meeting

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This guide assumes you have to access the webinar from home.

Before the webinar starts, turn off all devices accessing your home modem (Roku, phones, other computers, etc.). You will increase your bandwidth quickly.
Four hours before the webinar starts, turn off your modem and wireless router and restart them. This method will allow your modems to kind of do a self-clean.
Just before the webinar, move as close as possible to your wireless router. 2.4 GHz travels farther. If you are on 5 GHz (much faster), the signal does not go through walls, etc. very well.
If you want the fastest possible bandwidth, use a CAT5 cable and hook it directly into the back of your modem. Now, you have big-time bandwidth.
Run this test to see how fast your system is feeding your computer data. Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc. require minimum bandwidth to operate. My results can be found here. I am OK, but I have to remember that the presenter’s bandwidth plays into the equation. I had to upgrade my modem a few months ago. More on that later.
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If your numbers from the test in #5 are too low for Zoom, GoToMeeting, then your webinar experience will be significantly diminished.
If you are a presenter, you are going to need more bandwidth than you expect to use for your presentation. I went through a webinar where my modem kept disconnecting. I had to use my cellphone to finish the audio portion. I upgraded my wireless router the next day.
Chat with or call your ISP if your numbers are low. I switched to Earthlink to get my bandwidth up a few years back. They added an extreme service for an extra $5 per month. No more problems popped up after that upgrade.
Two hours before the webinar, test your system with the webinar provider, if possible Skype Testing. Zoom Testing Page GoToWebinar Testing
If you are going to video chat with your fellow employees, you will need quite a bit of bandwidth if there are more than two participants. Check with your employer’s IT department for any specifications or tips.
Malware and Virus checkers used to interfere with webinars, now, not so much. The malware, spam, and virus checkers have realized that their software cannot block or hinder webinar participation.
My VPN (Virtual Private Network) does slow down my data rates. If you are sitting at home and then tunnelling to a server in another part of the country, then your bandwidth will suffer if that remote server is slow. Run the #5 test through your VPN to see if it is fast enough for an excellent webinar experience.
Do not turn off your virus, malware or VPN services due to #11 and #12 – especially your virus/malware software.
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Only have the tab for your webinar open, other tabs can affect your webinar. I have not tested all the browsers for speed.
If you are thinking of hosting a webinar, then this page will help.
All the above applies if you are going to access the webinars with a phone or tablet. Just make sure that you can access the webinar through a modem. I paid an extra $22 to my phone service provider for data due to a 1.5-hour webinar that my service switched from my work modem to my phone’s data service. (ouch!) I have since learned to turn off my data to keep the webinar going through the modem.
Finally, is your phone, tablet, or desktop/laptop fast enough to handle a webinar? I had to jettison a 3-year-old notebook as it was not fast enough even after a RAM and SSD update.
Bonus – if the webinar has problems, give them a few minutes before dropping the webinar. Webinar providers can usually recover in less than 10 minutes.
Choose your webinars well. There are going to be tons to choose from until the coronavirus situation resolves. You can be picky.
Check to make sure the webinar is still scheduled on the expected date and time. I found out the hard way that current webinars may be moved to May or June. I had one this week and one last week where the webinar was understandably delayed to June. I tried to sign on when I should have paid attention to their emails canceling the webinars.

If you feel the above list is too complicated or you do not feel comfortable adjusting your computer, modem, etc., then do not do it. Sometimes, leaving well enough alone provides a good webinar experience.

I hope this mini-guide to workers comp webinars was helpful to you – good luck.

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NCCI Virtual Annual Issues Symposium Free – May 12th – Sign Up Now

March 24, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

NCCI Virtual Annual Issues Symposium With Powerful Free Webinar – Sign Up – It’s Freebies!

The NCCI Virtual Annual Issues Symposium replaces the annual in-person symposium. The great news – NCCI will not be charging a fee for one of the top Worker’s Comp Symposiums.

Portrait of excited business people NCCI Virtual Annual Issues arm raised in the sky

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Dr. Rober Hartwig will present on the effects of the Coronavirus on The 2020 Recession. I have attended a few sessions where Dr. Hartwig presented an unusual angle on Worker’s Comp. This session should be no different.

Barry Lipton (NCCI Actuary) always asks great questions at the annual WCRI Conference in Boston every year.

You can find the agenda here.

Please see Sign up link at the bottom of the article. Yes, you have to register.

NCCI AIS Symposium Presenters

The speaker bios are below.

Bill Donnell, CPCU, President and CEO, NCCI

Group of NCCI Virtual Annual Issues business people

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Bill Donnell is president and chief executive officer of NCCI, a trusted source of workers compensation information. Under his leadership, NCCI serves nearly 40 state governments and more than 900 insurers, providing data, insights, tools, and services that foster a healthy workers compensation system. Donnell is an accomplished executive leader with more than three decades of industry experience specializing in property/casualty (P/C) insurance/reinsurance in both global and domestic US leadership roles. Prior to joining NCCI, he was president of Swiss Re’s P/C reinsurance business. He is a noted insurance industry subject-matter expert and speaker.

Donna Glenn, FCAS, MAAA, Chief Actuary, NCCI

Glenn leads the Actuarial & Economic Services Division of NCCI. Her team helps maintain a healthy workers compensation system through the design and delivery of all actuarial and economic work at NCCI. The team produces rate/loss cost filings and conducts legislative analyses, compiles and analyzes insurance industry results, establishes residual market reserves, and creates actuarial tools, analytics, and research. Prior to this, Glenn led casualty product and underwriting for the national insurance business segment at Liberty Mutual, where she oversaw workers compensation strategy for both guaranteed cost and loss sensitive business. She has also held positions at The Hartford, Travelers, and Deloitte, with focus areas ranging across product management and pricing strategy including predictive analytics, business intelligence, and data management. Glenn graduated from Quinnipiac College with a bachelor of science in computer science and mathematics. She is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society. She previously represented Liberty Mutual on several industry boards including: the New York Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (NYCIRB), the Pennsylvania Compensation Rating Bureau (PCRB), the Minnesota Workers Compensation Insurers Association (MWCIA), and the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI).

Robert Hartwig, PhD, Clinical Associate Professor of Finance,
Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina

businessman NCCI Virtual Annual Issues assisting couple

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Robert Hartwig is clinical associate professor of finance and co-director of the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center. His research focuses on insurance markets and structures, risk management, risk-bearing capital market instruments, the financing of technology risks, and venture capital in insurance markets. He makes frequent presentations to insurance industry management, boards of directors, regulators, and legislators. Prior to joining the Darla Moore School of Business, he was president and economist for the Insurance Information Institute. In prior positions, worked for Swiss Re, NCCI, and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University. His other professional experience includes expert witness testimony and testimony before numerous congressional and state legislative committees. He holds the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) credential and speaks frequently in the media on all issues related to insurance markets.

Barry Lipton, FCAS, MAAA, Practice Leader & Senior Actuary, NCCI

Professor writing NCCI Virtual Annual Issues whiteboard

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Barry Lipton leads NCCI’s research and presents regularly before insurance industry groups on critical issues such as medical cost drivers, developments in NCCI’s actuarial methodology, and current workers compensation trends. Before joining NCCI, Lipton worked for the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company as vice president and as an actuary in the claims division. He has extensive experience as a commercial lines pricing actuary, including workers compensation, liability, and property insurance. Lipton is the author of “The Use of Networks to Care for Injured Workers—What’s Been the Impact?” and “Comparing the Quantity and Prices of Physician Services Between Workers Compensation and Group Health.” He presented “Work Comp vs. Group Health—The Price We Pay” at NCCI’s Annual Issues Symposium 2019.

Raji Chadarevian, Director, Medical Regulation & Informatics, NCCI

Raji Chadarevian leads a team of actuaries responsible for pricing proposed and enacted changes to laws and regulations governing medical benefits in workers compensation in all NCCI states. With more than 20 years in the workers compensation field, he is NCCI’s primary actuarial expert on matters relating to medical data and workers compensation health informatics. Prior to 2012, Chadarevian was responsible for several state rate filings, including Montana, New Mexico, and Oregon. Chadarevian is the principal author of “How Is Medical Inflation Measured? And Why Should I Care?” and “Killer Pain Relief: Opioids in Workers Compensation.” He recently co-authored a presentation on “Game Changers and the New Workplace” at NCCI’s Annual Issues Symposium 2019. Chadarevian received a bachelor of science in mathematics from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Sign up here.

See you (sort of) at the 2020 NCCI Virtual Annual Issues Symposium – May 12th, 1 PM Eastern.

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WCRI Prior Recession Report – The COVID-19 Economic Recovery

March 18, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

WCRI Prior Recession Report Shadows The COVID Economic Situation

WCRI Prior Recession Report and COVID comparison

Public Use License – See prior graphic

Dr. Savych has published many reports on the post-return-to-work attitudes of injured employees.

I received this email today from WCRI. The report may be worth a look. WCRI also offers a free medical pricing report that will pop up when you go to their website.

At the same time, these measures are expected to be of limited duration and the economy may rebound quickly after the restrictions are lifted. Longer-term unemployment may be limited due to the possible quick turnaround, though this observation is tempered by the possibility that the temporary closures will remain permanent for some businesses. So, the results of the WCRI study summarized below, while instructive, hopefully, will have limited applicability to the current situation.

Recession, Fear of Job Loss, and Return to Work – The study is located here.

The study identifies two different channels of the impact of a recession on return to work of those injured at work:
• Direct effect: Workers seeking to return to work might find that job opportunities are scarcer and that return to work is delayed.
• Indirect effect: Workers may fear job loss if they do not return to work, so they may try to hasten that return to work.

The study used WCRI’s Worker Outcomes Surveys prior to the Great Recession to evaluate how variations in the local unemployment rate affect return to work of those injured at work through the two channels identified above. The workers in these surveys were out of work due to injury for more than 7 days, a group more likely to feel the impact of a recession on return to work. The study asked what would be the impact on longer-term unemployment of doubling the unemployment rate from 5 to 10 percent. Longer-term unemployment is defined as not returning to work within 2.5 years after injury.

The study showed:

Vector wcri prior recession report Growth graph

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• Direct effect: Doubling the unemployment rate increases the percentage of injured workers experiencing longer-term unemployment from 14.7 percent to 18.7 percent due to lack of available job opportunities.

• Indirect effect: At the same time, doubling the unemployment rate increased the percentage of workers fearing job loss when injured from 35.5 percent to 51.3 percent. This increased fear of job loss resulted in an increase in the percentage of injured workers avoiding long-term job loss of 1.6 percentage points. This offsets the direct effect of the unemployment rate increase.

The net effect of an increase in the unemployment rate from 5 to 10 percent is to increase longer-term unemployment from 14.7 percent to 17.1 percent, or 16 percent.

The study also considers other scenarios where the impact of a recession on the fear of job loss and resulting worker response is even greater than measured in the data (perhaps because the data were collected prior to the Great Recession). In these scenarios, the probability of longer-term unemployment increases to a lesser extent than the net effect described above.

Usefulness

business strategy wcri prior recession report transparent board

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The report may be useful to those who are trying to predict the impact of the current recession on return-to-work interventions and outcomes, as well as on workers’ compensation claims and costs—especially for income benefits. It may also be relevant for predicting the impact of an economic recovery. As the economy strengthens and the unemployment rate falls, there will be more job opportunities, less fear of job loss, and perhaps less aggressive efforts by injured workers to seek reemployment.

Key findings:

Workers who are afraid of being fired are less likely to become longer-term unemployed after an injury. These workers may be more aggressive in seeking return-to-work opportunities, making an extra effort to return to work earlier or to take steps to increase their chances that their job will exist after return to work.
Injured workers in areas with unemployment rates that are rising or that are higher than normal for the area are more likely to fear losing their jobs. The greater the fear, the more likely it is that workers will more actively pursue returning to work, thus reducing the number of workers that experience longer-term unemployment.

Recession, Fear of Job Loss, and Return to Work. Richard A. Victor, Bogdan Savych. April 2010. WC-10-03.

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Missouri Workers Comp Medical Treatment Very Expensive – NCCI Study

March 18, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

Missouri Workers Comp Medical Treatment 304% More Expensive Than Health Insurance

I forgot to finish this article on Missouri Workers Comp medical treatment that I started at the WCRI Annual Conference two weeks ago. The comparison is still worth examining for medical costs.

Hands presenting wcri prior recession report health insurance

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NCCI (National Council on Compensation) Insurance headquartered in Boca Raton, FL decided to compare health insurance costs to worker’s compensation medical treatment.

WCRI and NCCI have compared health insurance costs to Worker’s Comp in the past. Check out these articles on those studies.

Health Insurance Treatment Costs Less

Will No Health Insurance Cause Case Shifting?

The NCCI study can be found at this PDF. The study is worth a review and a download. I usually look for any anomalies or outliers. Why? Because that is what I do in my articles.

The NCCI study had changed from before in a few areas including the reduction of radiological study costs.

The one outlier that jumped off the page came from the “Show Me State.” Missouri Workers Comp medical treatment costs, when compared to health, appeared as almost an outlier.

Jurisdictions included in the study were AK, AL, AR, AZ, CO, CT, DC, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, ME, MO, MS, MT, NC, NE,
NH, NM, NV, OK, OR, RI, SC, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, and WV. A comparison of 37 states is rather comprehensive.

Most of the states that had no medical fee schedules were more expensive. Medical fee schedules have been covered in the following recent articles.

NCCI used relativities which were likely the best way to compare the data. NCCI covered price and utilization as the two relativities. Check out page 7 of the study for a nice summary comparison.

Missouri Workers Comp Medical Treatment NCCI Study

Please click on the chart for better resolution.

The Missouri Workers Comp medical treatment excessive cost and utilization stand out very quickly in the above chart. How should we assess the 300+% relativity when compared to health insurance costs?

As mentioned earlier, Missouri has no fee schedule in place. States without fee schedules are usually more expensive for Workers Comp. The utilization component in the second column means the number of visits and tests performed occur much more when compared to health insurance.

The next time Missouri Workers Comp Medical is covered in an article by me, hopefully, the state will have enacted medical cost reductions.

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NCCI COVID-19 Article And Claims Compensability Debate

March 11, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

NCCI COVID-19 Article Addresses Compensability (Sort of)

A recent NCCI COVID-19 Article (Coronavirus) caught my eye. I have not seen a rating bureau analyze compensability whatsoever. Why?

Rotavirus – Public Use License – Graham Beards

NCCI is the acronym for the National Council on Compensation Insurance. They are the rating bureau for approximately 35 states.

NCCI has always been very helpful and professional in my dealings with the organization. This article is not meant to berate their article released today. The NCCI COVID-19 article sparked my memory on these types of very complicated and difficult to adjust claims.

Rating bureaus do not review claims for compensability. That comes from each state’s Workers Comp Commission’s rules and regulations. Check out the NCCI press release here. They concluded that “it depends,” which can be said of any injury in any state.

Personal Sensitivities

Personal Sensitivities and Exposure to the General Public has long been debated in claims offices around the country. A few articles on this very subject has appeared in this blog.

Personal sensitivities caused me to receive more than a few angry calls over the years when, usually, a medical-only claim was not paid under Workers’ Comp due to someone having a personal sensitivity to their environment. Please note this varies from state to state.

If you follow the link in the preceding paragraph, a viral (no pun intended) appeared in this blog in 2018 on personal sensitivities. The dish detergent personal sensitivity claim caused many debates on paying what was a small physician’s office bill or denying it.

Exposure To The General Public

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Exposure to the general public refers to determining a claim that involves a disease or condition that the claimant may have been exposed to outside of work. Would the NCCI COVID-19 passage in the article refer to something that an employee contracted outside of work or not performing their job duties?

NCCI may have had it correct when they said: “it depends.” If an employee contracts COVID-19, can it be proven that it occurred while furthering the interests of their respective employer? The decisions by a claims department may grow very complex when trying to find the source of the disease.

Exposure to the general public means the employee was exposed or could have been exposed while out in the general public, and not necessarily due to contracting a disease at work.

If you are interested, the best chart for following the COVID-19 outbreak, not surprisingly, comes from Johns Hopkins University at this link.

Complex Decisions

Workers’ Compensation adjuster jobs were complex enough before having to make a COVID-19 accept/deny decision. I have not seen any carriers produce blanket statements yet.

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WCRI Day Two Conference – Morning – What I Learned Today

March 10, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

What I Learned Today at the WCRI Conference – 2020

I decided to split out the Mental Health Session into its own article.

State of the States Selective Findings

Benchmark WCRI Conference 2020 at 78 magazine lane

Wikimedia Commons – Rodhullandemu

This session features selective findings and trends seen across WCRI’s core benchmark studies, including our 18-state CompScope™ Benchmarks reports, a multistate benchmarking program that measures the performance of a growing number of state workers’ compensation systems. One set of findings will focus on readmission and reoperation rates as seen below.

Hospital Inpatient Metrics – Carol Telles, WCRI

Inpatient Hospital Payments account for 17% of Total Hospital Payments

Long Term Decrease in Hospital Inpatient Payments

Share of cases with 20,000 or less decreased, 20,000+ increased

Major surgery rate decreased 6 – 7 % 2017 to 2019

Iowa, Louisiana, and Massachusetts had increases in inpatient with surgery

Inpatient reimbursement rates – Indiana Minnesota and North Carolina had reductions from 2010 – 2017

Readmission and Reoperation Rates among Workers’ Compensation Patients

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, two of the main indicators of surgical quality are whether patients are readmitted or reoperated upon after a surgical procedure.

The parts of WCRI Conference 2020 Lumbar

Wikimedia Commons – Anatomist90

However, the research on these important indicators is limited for workers’ compensation patients who undergo lumbar spine surgery. In this session, we share preliminary research on this important topic.

Questions Addressed:

What are the readmission and reoperation rates in workers’ compensation for lumbar spine surgery?
How do these indicators vary across states as well as compare with other payor groups?
What are the implications of these indicators for payors, injured workers, policy makers, health care providers, and regulators?

Readmission and Reoperation Rates – Dr. Randall Lea, WCRI

Two main markers of quality by non-WC payors

Readmission – unplanned hospitalization after a patient has been discharged

90-day timeframes in the study

Discectomy and Fusion were the two surgeries studied

Fixable/curable vs. non-fixable/manageable

Dr. Rebecca Yang – WCRI

Used the CompScope usual 18 states

72% of patients had a discectomy

28% had fusion

Studied 30,000 claims – 11% of patients with low back conditions had surgery

5.5% reoperation, 5.5% readmission, 4.9% both reoperation and readmission

California had 22% reoperation or readmission rate

7 – 8% of lumbar surgery cases had reoperation or readmission within 30 days and 90 days of surgery

7.2% had readmission or reoperation within 30 days.

56.4% decompression 43.6% fusion – reoperation rates

With no readmission or reoperation, $33,775 discectomy $90,614 fusion

With readmission and reoperation $120,472 discectomy $144,272 fusion

Prioritizing Mental Health for Workers Injured On The Job – WCRI Session

March 6, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

I decided to place this session by itself as I had written on this session last week.

Dr. Boden – Suicide and Opioid Mortality Related to Workplace Injury

Injured Worker Mortality in New Mexico

Women – Lost time injured -10%
Men – Lost time injured – 16%

Suicides and Opioids result in more deaths than auto accidents

Drug-related and suicide deaths within 20 years after injury – 300% higher in women

A study from West Virginia – same results

Injured employees had a very heavy tendency for opioid dependency

40% increase in depression post-injury lost-time claims

Injury prevention is tantamount.

Mr. Callahan – MA Building Trades Council

93% male workforce
If you do not work, you do not get paid
A lot of addiction due to return to work issues, need to work
Peer-to-peer advisors have been successful

Mary Christensen – Southern CA Edison

Advocacy program – 360-degree outlook
EAP provider teaming with claims department for services offered by EAP
Non-occ claims reps brought in for training
Identifying stuck employees

Dr. Larsen – New England Baptist Hospital

CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy – coping skills
Pre-frontal therapy never addresses the limbic system
Limbic approach EMDR- Rapid Eye Movement treatment
Reteach breathing to lower stress
Sense of learned helplessness <<<I have seen this often in Workers Comp claims >>>
Lew Millender, MD – Baptist Hospital – if you care about your patients, they will return to work faster
Field Case Manager – Rehab Nurse on file always makes the file turn out better <<<my favorite WC Risk Management Technique>>>>
Return to work always has to be the goal
Trauma theatre – rewind effect of the trauma
Physical therapists are invaluable to the psychological recovery

WCRI Annual Conference 2020 – Aging Workforce Claims

March 5, 2020 By JL Risk Management Consultants

How Injuries, Claims and Outcomes Change with Age – Dr. Bogdan Savych

Baby boomers for Aging Workforce climate action

Wikimedia Commons – Takver

The age distribution of the workforce is projected to change in the next 10 years. The large cohort of baby boomers will have largely retired, shifting the age distribution toward younger workers.

In this session, we will help frame the potential impact of this shift on the workers’ compensation system by providing a multi-dimensional picture of how claim characteristics and outcomes vary with age. In particular, we will examine how injury rates, claim costs, contributors to claim costs (such as utilization of medical care, and duration of disability), and outcomes differ by age.

Questions Addressed:

How do rates of non-fatal and fatal injuries vary by age? Do the events causing injury differ by age?
How do medical and indemnity payments per claim vary by age and are these variations related to the different injuries sustained by workers of different ages?
How do worker outcomes—such as return to work, access to care, and satisfaction with care—vary by age

Presentation

In 2030 over 20% of the workforce will be Senior Citizens

BLS > Older workers are more likely to remain working > 12% over 75 years old

65+-Year-old workers are among the least injured age groups

Older workers are more likely to have falls, slips, and trips.

Sprain type injuries are very low for 65+ age group

Cut injuries decrease with age

Hip, upper extremity and leg fractures increase with age

Medical payments increase with age for claims with more than 7 days lost time

Neurological injuries (very expensive) increase with age then decreases at about 50+ years

Indemnity payments decrease at 55 years+ with the lowest for 65+ age group

Pre-injury weekly wages decrease sharply for 65+ age group

Variation in Outcomes by Age

65+ age group possess a larger amount of comorbidities > as expected

65+ age group had fewer problems receiving provider services