A recent article by an organization devoted entirely to government affairs readily notes that continued and implacable dangers regularly confront millions of American workers in wide-ranging industries that include agriculture, forestry, mining, transportation, warehousing, construction and many others.
]]> In fact, the article simply leads with the incontrovertible statement that, "The American workplace is not as safe as it could be."The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released information concerning work-related deaths and injuries for the year 2010. The bureau states that 4,690 workers died that year from work-related injuries, which was an increase from the prior year. An estimated 13 people die at their workplace every day of the year in the United States.
The International Labor Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency, states that the U.S. fatality rate of 3.6 deaths per every 100,000 workers is bested by a number of other industrialized countries, including Australia, Canada, Hungary, Spain, Finland and many more.
Critics say that a better performance level perhaps lacks because of a failure in close oversight by the federal and state-level OSHA agencies, which lack adequate resources to optimally do their jobs. On average, it is estimated that state OSHA inspectors are able to inspect a workplace only one time every 70-plus years.
Injuries -- some of them fatal -- are the obvious result of that. Employees injured at the workplace often suffer considerable down time, lost wages and challenges from their employers and insurers regarding workers' compensation claims.
Contact an experienced New York workers' compensation attorney for rigorous and effective representation in any work-related matter.
Source: AllGov News, "13 workers a day die on the job ... not including work-related diseases," May 8, 2012
]]>Naysayers of the government insurance program also say with some regularity that increasingly more people are slipping through the system and collecting benefits through "difficult to verify" disorders that include muscle ailments and various mental conditions.
Economic trends and statistics from a wide variety of government and private sources tell a quite different tale and go far toward debunking the claims of those who are stridently demanding elimination or major modification of the SSD insurance program.
]]> The point that centrally underscores what hard data concludes is that most disabled people truly want to work, but simply can't."I can't stress enough that I'd rather be working," says one person receiving SSD benefits, "but my health has gotten the worst of me and any place I would have applied wouldn't have hired me."
That latter assertion is borne out by those who closely track the national economy. The bottom line for many people receiving SSD checks is that, even though they want to work, there is no job for them.
"Impediments to work are compounded for people with disabilities when the economy turns sour and there are simply fewer jobs and greater competition for the jobs that remain," says an executive with the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Additionally, it is sometimes necessary to remind critics of SSD of two fundamental points regarding the program and those who receive benefits through it.
First, beneficiaries are not receiving welfare-type assistance from the government; rather, only those who worked and paid into the program are eligible to benefit from it.
And, second, the system is anything but easy to negotiate, and many people are repeatedly denied approval to receive disability benefits. The process is arduous and requires comprehensive medical record keeping and proofs, with the result that a determination of disability is routinely made pursuant to only exacting requirements.
In other words, it is simply illogical to assume that the overwhelming majority of those who are approved following such a rigorous process are anything but disabled.
Source: Bloomberg, "Disabled Americans shrink size of U.S. labor force," Alex Kowalski, May 3, 2012
]]>The matter involves compensation that was sought by and approved for a number of prison guards in that state's correctional system who claimed that they were unable to work owing to on-the-job injuries sustained during the course of their employment.
]]> Their ultimate supervisor, Tony Godinez, who is the Illinois director of the Department of Corrections, disputes their eligibility, telling a state congressional committee recently that, "I think there's fraud."What is centrally at issue is the claim made by many guards that routinely locking and unlocking prison cells resulted in their sustaining wrist and elbow injuries that prevented them from working. Those injuries were classified as repetitive trauma injuries.
Although those claims were later debunked by a state-commissioned medical report, many guards continued to receive payments, which collectively totaled about $10 million.
Godinez also stated that, despite his feelings that a number of compensation claims from security personnel were fraudulent, some were also "bona fide."
That latter statement embodies an important point, namely, that some degree of fraud -- even if small -- will undoubtedly be present in a program as large as the workers' compensation regime that exists in each state.
Godinez's comments underscore the need for workers' comp applications to be completed fully, accurately and with supporting documentation. It is of course unfortunate whenever a legitimate claim for compensation following a workplace accident or injury is tarnished or questioned by others that may be fraudulent. Multiple studies have shown that the latter are close to statistically insignificant.
An experienced workers' compensation attorney can serve as a strong legal representative in helping any injured worker apply for and receive benefits, fully promoting the worker's best interests and protecting his or her legal rights.
Source: Insurance Journal, "Menard guards wrongly paid workers' compensation," May 3, 2012
]]>That has made her strong, resilient, hopeful and, among other things, a staunch advocate for persons collecting Social Security Disability (SSD) payments, which she herself collects.
]]> In Schaefer's view, certain points concerning the program's eligibility requirements -- as well as those relating to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program -- need changing, both for purposes of simple fairness and in promotion of individual dignity.Schaefer, an Ohio resident, is establishing a nonprofit group of advocates who will seek SSD reform on Capitol Hill. Additionally, she has drafted and is currently circulating a petition that asks Congress to make two very specific changes.
First, Schaefer calls it "a shame" that individuals in the SSI program must liquidate their personal resources down to the level of $2,000 to qualify for benefits. She seeks a raised level of $20,000.
Second, Schaefer points to a lack of logic in the way that work is credited for purposes of eligibility in the SSD program, which mandates that an applicant for disability benefits must have accumulated 40 credits. The SSA requires that 20 of those be earned "in the last 10 years ending with the year you become disabled."
That is not just, Schaefer maintains, because "for most people in this situation, the last 10 years is when they were sick or recovering from surgery." In short, they might have been unable to accumulate credits over that time.
Schaefer says that, instead, SSD should consider a person's entire working career, not unduly emphasizing the income earned only during the most recent period.
"Anybody can become disabled," says Schaefer. "The idea that I can maybe create change for other people in my situation gives me a sense of purpose."
Source: Dayton Daily News, "Cancer survivor advocate for disability rights of all," Susan Dalzell, May 2, 2012
]]>As we noted in that post, those mailings have possibly disappeared forever, with their demise owing centrally to what SSA officials say was the prohibitive cost involved in assembling and sending them through the postal system. An estimated $70 million annually was spent on the mailings.
]]> Earlier this week, the agency announced that the online statements it promised were forthcoming for just a fraction of that cost are now available for the scrutiny of workers 18 and older through the SSA website."Our new online Social Security statement is simple, easy to use and provides people with estimates they can use to plan," says SSA Commissioner Michael J. Astrue, who notes additionally that the statement contains useful information concerning Social Security Disability (SSD) and survivors benefits.
A complaint voiced by many advocates for the disabled and elderly has centered on the relative difficulty that many of those people might have in securing necessary information online as opposed to seeing that information quickly and easily in paper statements.
That might be true for some, but many others will likely find the process somewhat user-friendly. In most cases, it takes just a few minutes to open an account, which is then displayed in an easy-to-read and fairly simple format.
As with the paper statements, the new statement has an overview page, an estimated-benefits page and an earnings-record page. Additionally, it tells a user whether he or she is eligible to apply for SSD benefits and, if so, what the estimated benefit following an approved claim would be.
The information, while likely useful to many people, is undeniably sketchy. An experienced disability attorney can provide further and more detailed information concerning the SSD application and benefits process.
Source: Washington Post, "Social Security benefits available online," Stephen Ohlemacher, May 2, 2012
]]>That would be the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and its critics say that it is lax and tardy about identifying workplace hazards and implementing measures that will reduce on-the-job injury claims and promote employees' safety.
]]> Workers' compensation advocates and those with a close eye on injury and fatal accident statistics note well that OSHA is often mired in layers of bureaucratic red tape and heavy overlays of procedural requirements. Additionally, the agency routinely faces pressure and litigation from business groups opposed to reform.That does not forgive, though, what many critics say is an egregiously slow response time for implementing necessary safety rules. It has been noted, for example, that OSHA takes about 50 percent longer to approve a new regulation than does the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department.
A workplace expert recently told a Senate committee that OSHA has "created barriers based on false alarms," and that "lives are at stake."
Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, goes farther than that in his criticism of the agency.
"It is simply unconscionable that workers must suffer while an OSHA rule is mired in bureaucracy," Harkin says.
The performance of OSHA will continue to be debated in upcoming months, with the very question of additional and enhanced government regulation itself being a lightning rod in the current political climate and with the upcoming presidential election.
Source: Insurance Journal, "OSHA hit for taking too long to adopt workplace safety rules," Sam Hananel, April 23, 2012
]]>Rhetoric in the immediate aftermath of the report is what it customarily has been in the wake of the study: finger pointing along partisan lines on Capitol Hill and commentators across a broad spectrum making wide-ranging predictions.
]]> Typically, some of those writers and pundits argue that the benefits and disability programs are doomed to extinction in the not-too-distant future.Others take a more measured approach, noting that the annual report always brings headlines and a near fever-pitch response in some people. They say that the trust funds that administer the retirement and disability benefits programs are undeniably solvent now and can remain so with just a bit of political unity and minor tweaking.
Indeed, statistics backed by firm research would seem to bear that out. As it stands now, government researchers say that the retirement program -- predicted just one year ago to run out of funds by 2036 -- will now be depleted by 2033. The trustees stated last year that the SSD program would exhaust its funds by 2018. That figure has now been adjusted to 2016.
Those dates, though, are posited only in the event that no modifications are made to the system, and a number of economists and financial experts say that adjustments can be made to keep the benefits programs strong and viable.
The trustees themselves say that the program could be restored to full solvency for the next 75 years if only a couple of changes are made.
Those changes consist of this: Immediately increase the payroll tax by about 1.3 percent for workers and employers, or immediately reduce benefits by about 16 percent. Alternatively, some combination of the two would achieve the same result.
The experts are unified in their agreement that delaying such changes -- in effect, passing them on to future generations -- would require a considerably higher sacrifice in upcoming years.
Source: U.S. News and World Report, "6 facts about the Social Security trust fund," April 24, 2012
]]>That may simply seem like a commonsense observation, but, until the release of a recent study, there have never been hard numbers to back it up.
Now there are, and they show a firm correlation between what researchers call a "safety climate" at the workplace and the number of on-the-job injury claims that are filed by workers.
]]> New York employers with demonstrably dismal safety records might want to take a note of that, given the close nexus between an unsafe working environment and employees' lost wages, workers' compensation claims and related matters.In short, they should note this: When employees perceive that their company is committed to safety and, concomitantly, a sensible work/life balance, that perception becomes reality. The organization actually becomes safer and more profitable.
That is the strong finding in a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia. Their work reveals that workers who believe they are employed in a safe environment actually experience about 32 percent fewer injuries that owe centrally to that belief.
Additionally, they experience fewer injuries, suffer less down time and file fewer workers' comp claims when they view that their employer cares about their families and is paying some attention to their need to have quality time away from work.
As a corollary to that, and quite obviously, on-the-job injuries will increase among workers in environments where it is clear that employers are not strongly focused on safety or employees' interests. In such environments, serious workplace injuries are far more common.
An injured worker often has many questions and concerns regarding medical care, lost wages, rehabilitation that might be necessary and workers' compensation. Additionally, the negligence or wrongful conduct of parties other than an employer might have contributed to an injury.
An experienced workers' comp and disability attorney can answer questions regarding a workplace injury and provide effective representation in any claim.
Source: Human Resource Executive Online, "The value of safety climates," David Shadovitz, March 29, 2012
]]>It is an understandable thought, especially when one might be wondering whether an incapacitating disability might become a real possibility at some point in life. Many families have health histories where particularly virulent forms of cancers afflict their members across generations. For some families, heart attacks or stroke are a special problem. For others, diabetes might pose a special risk. For others still, Alzheimer's disease might have afflicted more than one older relative. Perhaps autoimmune illnesses such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis are common within a family.
]]> Science has long held out hope that gene mapping -- a complete study of a person's DNA -- might be that predictive instrument that would allow a person to see future medical risks and prepare for them, through diet and exercise, medical screenings, financial savings and planning for things like long-term disability care and Social Security Disability.It turns out to be not so simple, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins researchers. They say that gene mapping -- which is now well developed and relatively cheap -- "is not a crystal ball" for predicting the future medical history of a person who is essentially in good health presently. They note, though, that testing can be valuable for a person who already has a particular illness or disease.
For most healthy people, says a commentator on the study, the report offers "a cautionary tale not to rush into using new technology" until both its benefits and drawbacks are fully understood.
The researchers' recipe for doing one's best to guard against illness and disability is a time-honored prescription that most people know already: Get physical checkups, eat and rest properly, try to get regular exercise, drink in moderation and don't smoke.
Source: Web MD, "Gene mapping for healthy people no 'crystal ball,'" Charlene Laino, April 2, 2012
]]>One organization for the disabled -- the Vermont Center for Independent Living -- even went so far as to hold a news conference earlier this month in which advocates discussed the problem of benefit payments that were due at the beginning of April not showing up in beneficiaries' bank accounts.
]]> A spokesperson for the center says that he has received about half a dozen calls from concerned recipients whose money was not credited to their accounts. Additionally, he says that banks have contacted him to discuss the problem.The Social Security Administration states that an agency official is in contact with the center. It is not immediately clear whether the problem applies only to SSD beneficiaries or extends further to retirees.
As a general matter, the administration takes every opportunity to tout the system's changeover to electronic deposits from paper checks. The deadline for going paperless is March 2013, notes Dick Gregg, the fiscal assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Treasury, and Gregg says that the change should bring about widespread benefits.
Initially, he notes, it will eliminate the problem with lost and stolen checks, an issue that the SSA states applies to about 600,000 checks each year.
Moreover, it will be flatly cheaper. Gregg says that a paper check costs about a buck to print and send, with an electronic transfer costing only about 10 cents.
Source: The Republic, "Advocates for disabled decry problems with electronic Social Security payments," Dave Gram, April 6, 2012
]]>That loophole is this: Many gravely ill people who apply for Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits are never able to receive them, given that they die within a short period after becoming ill and the program requires an applicant to pass through a mandatory five-month waiting period prior to benefits kicking in.
However, when they turn for help to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program -- which facially seems a promising hope, because it does not provide for an initial waiting period -- many of them come to learn that they do not meet its eligibility requirements. Further, SSI does not recognize terminal illness as a condition qualifying for benefits.
]]> The Michigan Senate wants legislative change made immediately that better helps severely ill and disabled people who find themselves in this legal limbo and without benefits for which they unquestionably qualify."Terminally ill patients in these cases don't have the luxury of time and should be eligible for immediate assistance," says the sponsor of the Senate resolution urging a systemic reform on Capitol Hill.
The resolution specifically asks for a waiver to the SSD waiting period and automatic inclusion in the SSI program as an eligible condition for low-income patients with terminal illnesses.
Source: Insurance News Net, "Green Resolution calls for Social Security reform for the terminally ill," April 10, 2012
]]>Previous studies have shown that to be true. Although all workers in the country who pay taxes contribute a portion of their earnings each month to the SSD program, many of them are less than clear concerning what it is or who it applies to.
]]> This lack of knowledge exists for many despite the thousands of dollars they might put into the program over their working lives and the sheer magnitude of the program itself: The government states that more than 10 million disabled workers receive monthly SSD benefit checks averaging about $1,070, with the total monthly outlay being about $9 billion.Applying for SSD and satisfying all the prerequisites to qualify for disability benefits is equally befuddling for many people, which commentators in the area say is understandable, given the many hoops and hurdles that mark the process.
Although the program can be applied for at virtually any Social Security office or online, many close observers of SSD as well as people who work within the system strongly suggest that an applicant secure the help of an experienced disability attorney at the very outset, for a number of reasons.
One is the application process itself -- the questionnaires, the required medical reports to support a claim, and evidence that relates to education, job history, work experience and other factors.
Another important reason has to do with keeping abreast on claim deadlines. Most people are denied initially and must file an appeal for a second paper review. It is not uncommon to be denied at that stage, also, which necessitates another appeal request for a hearing. The process successfully ends there for some people, but for others it can continue with yet another appeal and perhaps a court date.
A proven disability attorney knows the system, the required documentation and the relevant timeframes, and can serve as a strong advocate for a claimant throughout the process.
Source: AARP News, "How do I apply for disability?" Stan Hinden, April 5, 2012
]]>Certain features of the SSD program predominate in media stories, and one of them is certainly the angst that is apparent in many people who are clearly disabled and who ultimately do receive benefit checks, but only after undergoing years of waiting and multiple rejections.
]]> We have certainly chronicled that process and some of the eye-opening statistics associated with it in past blog posts. Some applicants who have a well-defined disability that is recognized by the Social Security Administration and have that condition exhaustively documented by medical authorities nonetheless must jump through seemingly countless hoops before a check arrives -- if it ever does -- in the mail.Moreover, the process routinely ends up with a claim rejection initially, after an exhaustive amount of record compiling and submissions. That is followed -- often only after a considerable lapse of time -- by a review hearing and, for many people, even an appeal sometime after that.
The West Virginia woman's frustration was primarily related to the tardiness in her brother's receipt of any disability benefits, despite his having a confirmed diagnosis of terminal cancer and a prognosis of only months to live. It was coupled with the fact that her sibling had dutifully paid into the system through payroll taxes for more than four decades.
The system is, as many people have noted, overextended and understaffed. It is without doubt imperfect, but it still stands as the country's best effort to help disabled workers obtain benefits to which they are entitled.
An experienced disability attorney can be instrumental in helping a claimant understand and work through the process, from initial record compilation and application through the hearing process and, if necessary, an appeal.
Source: Martinsburg Journal, "Social Security payment requirements are unfair," Judith Aabel, April 4, 2012
]]>On the one hand, the Board's stated plan to "revolutionize the way claims are processed and monitored" can be seen as a quite positive development and a necessary change going forward that will benefit all parties involved in the workers' compensation program. That includes employers, administrators, insurers and, most importantly of all, any employee suffering a workplace injury and in need of compensation.
]]> On the other hand, the Board's recently released Request for Proposal (RFP) in conjunction with its plan to modernize the compensation program highlights many areas that point to issues within the compensation program that have been longstanding problems and look to be that way for the immediately foreseeable future.In short, they continue to underscore the need for a worker suffering on-the-job injuries to secure prompt and diligent representation from a qualified workers' compensation attorney.
We recently apprised our readers of the state's plan to move from paper to electronic filing of all compensation claims and related materials (please see our March 14 blog post). That is an undeniably positive move that will likely -- as state administrators tout -- impose uniformity on claims and improve their timely payment.
Additionally, though, the RFP's "wish list" for improvements cites a number of bullet points in the modernization project that also highlight all the things that undeniably plague it at present. Collectively, they point out the need to have a proven compensation attorney on board to help secure optimal claim outcomes.
Specifically, such things include untimely payments; slow delivery of required medical documents; duplicative forms; internal waste, fraud and abuse; slow/tardy resolution of legitimate disputes; and so forth.
The Board has high hopes that, over time, an extensive dose of modernization into the process will drive efficiencies and make everyone involved happier.
As stated, a key component of the RFP will be the electronic submissions. The Board expects that paper submissions will be a thing of the past by 2013.
Source: "New York State Workers' Compensation Board announces plan to modernize its operations," April 2, 2012
]]>The owner, Erasmo Ponce, was arrested last Tuesday and released without bond.
The list of charges against Ponce in the case involving an employee's death following a fall into a machine is lengthy and includes filing false tax documents, not paying workers overtime and failure to contribute to their workers' compensation insurance. The amount of lost wages among the company's workers has yet to be determined.
]]> Ponce pleaded not guilty, and his attorney categorized him as "a poster board for other small businesses that don't have workers' compensation."That is not the way that either Schneiderman's office or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) saw it.
Schneiderman said that he decided to file criminal charges following an investigation by the New York Workers' Compensation Board. Inspectors from OSHA fined Ponce's company -- Tortilleria Chinantla -- $62,000 last summer for various health and safety violations. Inspectors say that the worker's fall and death would have been avoided had the company complied with relevant law and had the required safety equipment in place.
The fatality resulted from the employee being crushed to death after falling into a dough-making machine. The machine was required to have safety guards, which it did not.
Source: New York Daily News, "Tortilla factory owner Erasmo Ponce arrested after probe by AG Schneiderman," Erica Pearson, March 28, 2012
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