New York Pays Inmates for Workers' Comp Claims

Story first appeared on Business Insurance.

An audit found that New York's State Insurance Fund paid workers compensation benefits to incarcerated felons, but examiners could not conclude whether private insurers and self-insured employers also paid benefits to any inmates.

The State Insurance Fund improperly paid seven state prison inmates $36,000, according to an examination conducted by the New York State Comptroller. Inmates jailed on felony convictions are not eligible for workers comp benefits in New York.

These payments are indefensible and should have been stopped. The Workers' Compensation Board owes it to businesses and taxpayers to put stronger internal controls in place. New York state businesses can't afford to pay higher insurance premiums to cover the cost of these inappropriate payments.

The comptroller's office found the improper workers comp payments by cross-checking work comp claimant records with Department of Correction files for benefit payments made during the three-year period that ended last September.

The comptroller said another 193 inmates also may have been inappropriately paid benefits, but examiners could not say for certain because their benefits are paid by private insurers and self-insured employers.

However, the New York Workers' Compensation Insurance Board could assist both itself and the State Insurance Fund as well as the more than 1,600 private and self-insurance companies by performing a periodic match of claimant and inmate files.


For more national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the  Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.
For organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.

Rescue Effort for Trapped Factory Workers is On

Story first appeared in the Hindustan Times.

Death toll in the factory building collapse in Focal Point area of Jalandhar rose to 13 on Wednesday, as three more bodies were dug out from the rubble. The rescue team also brought out a trapped person safely, 55 hours after the tragedy. The joint rescue operation launched by National Disaster Response Force, Army, police and volunteers of Dera Sacha Saudha continued for the third consecutive day on Wednesday. Debris from the upper portion of the collapsed structure was being cleared during the round-the-clock operation. The prospective worker's compensation insurance claims are rising with the number of bodies pulled out.

Hydra cranes, JCB machines, gas cutters apart from sniffer dogs were pressed into service to accelerate the rescue operation.

NDRF headquarters DIG JKS Rawat visited the spot on Wednesday to supervise the rescue operation and guided the force about the strategy to be adopted for speedy rescue efforts.

They are now using life detectors, victim location cameras and other collapse structural search and rescue equipment to search for victims still trapped under the debris.

Wire cameras inserted beneath the debris on Wednesday morning revealed about five to six bodies lying at a particular location. Efforts were on to bring out the bodies,, he said.

About the number of persons still feared trapped under the debris, the DIG expressed ignorance, adding that the rescue operation would continue for a minimum of two days more.

On the chances of survival of the victims especially after 65 hours of the tragedy. Many a times it has been noticed that victims survive even for four days.

Meanwhile, medical experts said that there were very dim chances of survival of any victims since most were trapped in the basement where there was no proper ventilation.

Rescue teams drilled holes into the collapsed roof through which victim location cameras were sent in, but there was no signal of any person alive under the debris.

Unlike the case on Tuesday, better coordination among different rescue teams and presence of district administration senior officials was witnessed during the operation on Wednesday.




For more national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the  Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.
For organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.

Kansas Prepares for Gold-Rush Style Oil Boom

Article by Associated Press:
 

Between the buttes and rolling terrain of the Gypsum Hills in south-central Kansas, a massive drilling rig grinds deep into the earth, seeking to reach the oil-rich Mississippian Lime formation buried some 5,000 feet deep. Just beyond the rig, executives intently watch the progress.

Natural gas, fossil fuels and domestic oil production have the potential to enrich production companies

Modern prospectors are punching holes across south-central Kansas, in a gold rush-style hunt for oil and gas that could yield big returns not just for oil producers but also for the economy of many US states.
The boom is occurring even as domestic natural gas exploration begins to slow nationally.  In county courthouses across much of Kansas, scores of researchers comb through dusty land records stacked atop folding tables set up in hallways for them, toiling for producers and speculators alike who are scrambling to snap up millions of acres of mineral rights. Leases which just three years ago went for $30 an acre are now fetching $3,000 an acre in drilling hotspots. Awe-struck real estate agents watch incredulously as mineral rights fetch higher prices than the land itself.

Drilling has only just begun as gas production spreads north across a wide swath of the central Kansas prairie.

Look hard and you can see the first hints of change wafting through once sleepy rural hamlets. It's already tough to find a hotel room for the night or a rental property to live in. There's talk of possibly setting up "man camps" outside towns to house the anticipated influx of oilfield workers. Restaurants now seem busier than usual. And the local traffic sure feels like it has picked up on those old rural roads.  Hutchinson-based Osage Resources, is among a handful of producers behind an emerging oil boom sparked by modern technologies using horizontal drilling and a technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking to coax out oil and gas.  Energy companies have already reaped fortunes off the Mississippian Lime Play in Oklahoma and are now following the rock formation northward into Kansas, where millions of acres of mineral rights have been leased in the past two or three years.

If the Mississippian Lime Play unfolds as expected, the economic boost in Kansas could be enormous. Severance taxes will swell state's coffers.
Landowners will reap royalties. Oilfield workers will find hundreds, if not thousands, of good jobs typically paying $50,000 annually. Main Street business in countless small towns will thrive again.

Domestic oil and gas production represents an exciting opportunity for growing the Kansas economy while helping to secure greater energy independence for the country with more jobs and revenue kept in the United States versus American dollars sent abroad.
But with horizontal drilling still in its infancy in America, all those economic impacts have yet to be fully felt. Kansas locals, who have seen other oil booms come and go, remain wary.

The new-fangled wells are essentially vertical wells with a horizontal bend at the oil-rich lime formation. Fracking, a technique used in Kansas since 1947, pushes water and sand down the hole to open up natural fractures in the rock and increase permeability. That combination of old and new technologies allows producers to extract as much as five to 10 times more oil and gas from a horizontal well than a conventional vertical well.

The potential production from the Mississippian Lime Play — and its impact on domestic energy supplies — remains uncertain. But the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to unlock energy supplies previously unavailable in the United States is now in play in places like Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Oklahoma-based SandRidge Energy a company that has already spent $350 million to acquire nearly 2 million acres of mineral rights in Kansas and Oklahoma — with a majority of those leased acres located across a vast swath of central Kansas.

This year alone, SandRidge expects to pour $700 million into developing the Mississippian Lime Play in those two states. The company now has 21 drilling rigs to drill 50 wells in Kansas and 350 wells in Oklahoma this year.
Next year the company plans to have 45 rigs drilling 675 wells. To hold on to its leases, the company must drill a well every mile or so.

Once that is done — something that could take five years — SandRidge will go back and drill more wells until they have three wells per square mile. Within the next dozen years or so, SandRidge alone expects to punch more than 5,000 wells in Kansas.

Shell Oil and Chesapeake Energy are also drilling in Kansas, along with smaller independent Kansas energy producers.

Shell said it has acquired leases in a seven-county area in southern Kansas and is just now drilling its second exploratory well in Harper County. It plans to run three or four drilling rigs this year. Osage Resources plans to drill 216 horizontal wells to fully develop its Barber County lease.

Reports indicate that many oil rig workers of are working many long shifts and also enduring long commutes with many hours of daily driving just to get to the drilling rig. Oilfield workers log 12-hour work shifts before driving back home. They often work seven days straight, seven days off. One of the concerns with working such long hours is fatigue and the greater risk for work site accidents or becoming injured at work. Many oilfield workers have been requesting workers compensation insurance quotes from leading insurance companies.    

The demand for oil field workers has skyrocketed in recent months and the amount of drilling and domestic natural gas exploration projects has also increased dramatically in 2012.
Each horizontal well costs about $3 million to develop and typically pays for itself within 18 months of production. The average rate of return on investment is 90 percent.

Domestic oil and natural gas production is quite attractive at this time as oil prices continue to pace at high levels. In past decades, Kansas punched some 7,000 conventional vertical wells into the Mississippian Lime.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club said it is concerned about the impact of fracking on water tables and underground aquifers, while the fracking industry contends the wells are safe.  The Mississippian Lime, for example, is 5,000 feet deep, while groundwater typically lies 500 to 1,000 feet deep — with a lot of geological barriers separating the two. Environmentalists want safeguards such as a requirement that drillers provide a list of toxic chemicals they are using and submit a test of the water table for analysis before drilling to pinpoint the culprit if chemicals are later found in groundwater, says a spokesman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club. 

For more national and worldwide business related news, visit the Peak News Room blog.

Employee Testing May Be Required for Benefits

Story first appeared in USA Today.

Once a year, employees of the Swiss Village Retirement Community in Berne, Ind., have a checkup that will help determine how much they pay for health coverage.  Those who don't smoke, aren't obese and whose blood pressure and cholesterol fall below specific levels get to shave as much as $2,000 off their annual health insurance deductibles.  These tests also contribute to the Workers’ Compensation Insurance allowances that the company purchases.

At Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate firm, workers can earn up to $300 in cash for having a physical and hitting certain medical goals, or completing health coaching programs.

Gone are the days of just signing up for health insurance or Workers’ Comp Insurance and hoping you don't have to use it.  Now, more employees are being asked to roll up their sleeves for medical tests — and to exercise, participate in disease-management programs and quit smoking to qualify for hundreds, even thousands of dollars' worth of premium or deductible discounts.

Proponents say such plans offer people a financial incentive to make healthier choices and manage chronic conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, which are driving up health care costs in the USA.  Even so, studies of the effect of such policies on lifestyle changes are inconclusive. And advocates for people with chronic health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, fear that tying premium costs directly to test results could lead to discrimination.

Nonetheless, such plans appear to be the wave of the future.  Faced with crippling health care costs, the number of employers embracing such programs inched up from 49% in 2010 to 54% last year — and more say they expect to do so soon, according to a survey by consultants Aon Hewitt.  Big-name participants include insurer UnitedHealthcare, car rental firm Hertz, postage meter maker Pitney Bowes and media owner Gannett, owner of USA TODAY.  More employers are expected to adopt them starting in 2014, when the health law — if the Supreme Court upholds it — would allow them to offer larger incentives or penalties.

Cost savings seen

Leaders at Swiss Village credit their 8-year-old wellness program, along with a high-deductible insurance plan and an on-site fitness center, with slowing health care cost increases.  Indeed, workers saw no increase in premiums from 2005 to 2011.

Of the employers who offer such programs, about one-third offer financial incentives to those who undergo specific medical tests, according to the Aon Hewitt survey.  And 5% of those tie the financial rewards or penalties to meeting specific medical-based standards.  The survey also found an expansion of such tests is on the horizon: 57% of employers said they planned to add incentives for spouses and dependents in the next three to five years.

Employers will still have to craft plans to comply with federal and, in some cases, state requirements.  The programs must be voluntary — meaning an employer can't require a worker to participate as a condition of coverage — and the employer must offer a reasonable alternative to qualify for the reward, or to avoid the penalty for those who can't achieve the goals.

In an effort to slow rising costs, Broward County in 2009 began asking workers to fill out a health information form and have a finger-stick blood test each year to check blood sugar and cholesterol levels, according to court filings.  Workers who declined were docked $40 a month. Those who participated were offered disease-management programs if they had asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, congestive heart failure or kidney disease.  The county stopped docking those who declined to participate Jan. 1, 2011, after a lawsuit was filed, court documents show.

The lawsuit, which argues that the county's program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, is likely the first of its kind in the nation.  Without ruling on whether the wellness effort was voluntary, a federal district court judge backed the county in April of last year, saying the plan fell under provisions of the law meant to protect bona fide benefit programs.  The case is now on appeal. Broward County attorneys did not return requests for comment.

Some state lawmakers are also concerned about the potential for discrimination.  Colorado passed legislation in 2010 that requires wellness programs to be accredited, bars penalizing workers for not participating or failing to meet a health standard — and allows appeals if an employee is denied an alternative.  A similar bill was brought unsuccessfully in California last year, according to a February report by Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute.  A similar law could be written regarding New York Workers’ Comp Insurance Quotes, in relation to employee testing.

Concern for consumers

While supporting wellness programs in general, several patient advocacy groups warned the Presidential administration last March that additional consumer protections are needed.  Tying medical test results to financial incentives or penalties in premiums or deductibles could discriminate against some workers, especially those who already have health problems, the groups said.

Employers argue, however, that since they're on the hook for the bills, they can ask workers to take more responsibility. 

The first worker wellness programs, which began about a decade ago, rewarded simple participation: attending a health fair or filling out health risk assessments, with the worker perhaps receiving a $25 gift card in return.

Today, many offer discounted premiums to workers who meet standards related to blood pressure, cholesterol and weight, with the value of those discounts running between $30 and $60 a month, says founder and CEO of Bravo Wellness in Avon, Ohio.  Bravo administers such programs for about 220 employers nationwide, including Colorado construction firm Oakwood Homes and Nashville's Ardent Health Services.

Although employers may set specific goals — such as a body mass index (BMI) below 30, the level considered obese — many also reward achievement of less daunting targets. One employer rewarded workers if their test results didn't worsen.

At Swiss Village, workers get $500 off their deductible for each of these measures: not smoking, having a BMI of 27.5 or less, a low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (LDL) of 130 milligrams per deciliter or less, and blood pressure of 130/85 or less.  LDL levels above 129 are associated with higher risk of heart disease, while blood pressure greater than 120/80 is considered a risk factor for heart attack and stroke.

A second tier of awards allows employees who approach those ranges to earn $250 per category. The testing takes place at an on-site health fair or at a doctor's office, with the results gathered by an independent insurance firm that runs the company's program.

The information is generally gathered by firms that run wellness programs or insurance plans. UnitedHealthcare, which offers its Personal Rewards program to large, self-insured clients, says it does not use the information to set premiums.

But do they work?

Given the available data, it's hard to parse how much of the reported savings from such programs come from improved health, and how much from the frequent pairing of such programs with high-deductible policies.

The medical literature shows they work best when participants have choices: get below a certain BMI, or lose 5% of current body weight, for example. 

At Jones Lang LaSalle, workers who make a pledge — on the honor system — that they don't smoke, or will take a stop-smoking class, and achieve a healthy weight, get 10% off their contribution toward insurance premiums.

In 2010, the firm added a cash bonus program, offering $50 to workers who get a physical and another $50 for every one of four medical tests they take: weight, blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol, plus an extra $50 if they do all the tests.  If they meet specified goals — or complete a coaching program — they receive the money as a cash bonus.

Last year, 65% of employees participated. While it's early, indications are the program is having an impact on costs: Health spending rose 6% in 2010, but only 3% in 2011.