Police Response to Mental Illness Crises
At this session at PRIMA’s 2018 Annual Conference, Chief Ken Wallentine, Senior Legal Advisor, Lexipol, led a discussion around mental illness and how police respond. Ken Wallentine is a Special Agent of the Utah Attorney General Investigation Division, where he directs the Attorney General Training Center and provides use of force training and coordinates the virtual reality force and de-escalation training program. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody death. Wallentine also serves as Senior Legal Advisor for Lexipol, the nation’s leading provider of public safety risk management policies and resources. With
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Workplace Violence: Planning and Response
At the 2018 PRIMA Annual Conference, Regan Rychetsky, President and CEO of Insight Workplace Solutions, LLC, discussed workplace violence. All employers should establish a policy and protocols addressing workplace violence including domestic violence. The domestic violence piece is often overlooked and is one of the most common sources for workplace violence. Employers should establish a reporting process and track incidents and all employees need to be trained. You should also establish a threat response team. Identifying threats of workplace violence needs to become part of your culture. Elements in a workplace violence policy: Policy statement Exceptions Reporting Investigation Domestic violence
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Loss Portfolio Transfers
During at session at the CA-SIG Spring Forum Matt Shaff, Director – Business Development – West Region, Safety National and Tom Fitzgerald, Director – Business Development – East Region & LPT Practice Leader, Safety National presented on Loss Portfolio Transfers(LPTs) and the benefits of a LPT for self-insurance groups. A loss portfolio transfer is a financial solution for transferring outstanding loss liabilities. Simply stated converting the self-insurance policy to a guaranteed cost policy. The benefits of a LPT include: Conversion of all known and unknown liabilities into a fixed payment, including IBNR. Streamlined process resulting in a timely turnaround. Eliminates
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Advocacy and Employee Engagement
At the 2018 CLM / Business Insurance Workers’ Compensation Conference a panel discussed advocacy and employee engagement in your workers’ compensation program. The panel included: Kimberly George – SVP, Corporate Development, M&A and Healthcare, Sedgwick Laurie Frey – Manager of Workers’ Compensation, Kohl’s Jim Roach – Attorney, Hennessy & Roach PC Nancy Strubler – Director of Workers’ Compensation, National Express Company What does advocacy mean to you and why it is important? This is about having your associates fully engaged in the claim process. We want to give our associates all the resources we would want available to us in
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Pain Management Alternatives to Opioids
At the 2018 CLM / Business Insurance Workers’ Compensation Conference, a panel discussed non-opioid alternatives to pain management. The speakers included: James Atchison, DO – Medical Director Pain Management, Shirley Ryan Ability Lab Caryn Feldman, PhD – Associate Professor Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Shirley Ryan Ability Lab Shana Margolis, MD – Attending Physician, Shirley Ryan Ability Lab Melissa Roy – Manager, Nurse Case Management and Pharmacy, AF Group Appropriate use of opioids and the challenges of opioids: Opioids may be appropriate initially on very severe injuries, but not sprains and strains. They are also appropriate initially after surgery.
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Impact of Digital Innovation on Risk Management
At the 2018 CLM /Business Insurance Workers’ Compensation Conference, a panel discussed how technology is impacting risk management and claims handling. The panel included: Christopher Griffith – CIO, Safety National James Bentham – CEO, JB Knowledge Skip Brechtel – CIO and EVP, CCMSI Stan Smith – Practice Leader, Milliman, Inc Predictive Analytics Predictive analytics is the practice of extracting information from existing data sets in order to determine patterns and assign a probability for a future outcome. The goal of predictive analytics is to help users make better decisions. The key to predictive analytics is the quality of the data
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Complex Pain Treatment Strategies
At the 2018 CLM / Business Insurance Workers’ Compensation Conference a panel discussed complex pain treatment strategies. The panel included: Melissa Dunn – Regional Claims Advocacy Leader, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co Steven Moskowitz – Senior Medical Director, Paradigm Outcomes Kimberly Vaughn – AVP Workers’ Compensation, Amerisure Mutual Insurance Company Lisa Hunter – Attorney, Pullin, Fowler, Flanagan, Brown & Poe, PC Chronic pain claims often start with fairly common injuries that do not respond well to conventional treatments. They are highlighted by declining functional status, delayed recovery, high prescription utilization, high medical utilization, and intervention procedures being repeated without apparent
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ADA and Workers’ Compensation
At the 2018 Business Insurance / CLM Workers’ Compensation Conference a panel discussed the intersection of workers’ compensation and ADA. The panel included: Rajiv Dash, MD – Medical Director, Albertson’s Corporation Negar Matian – Attorney, Matian Law Group Carolyn Horton – Integrated Leave and Accommodation Manager, Costco Wholesale Erin Foley – Partner, Seyfarth Shaw It is important for people handling workers’ compensation claims to understand how those claims can impact the employer on the ADA side. Many employers have different people responsible for workers’ compensation and Human Resources so they will not consider how these two issues can interact. Often
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Provider Networks in Workers’ Compensation
At the 2018 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Barry Lipton from NCCI and Alex Swedlow from CWCI discussed studies on the impact provider networks have on workers’ compensation. California Data Data reviewed from 1990-2017 332% increase in medical costs per claim during that time period. In 2003, California passed legislation to encourage medical network use. Another law change in 2013 made it easier to manage these networks and limit liability for payments outside of the network. In 2004, 50% of workers’ compensation medical care was delivered by networks. In 2016 that was 84%. So the law changes did as intended in
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Blockchain and Insurance
At the 2018 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Paul Meeusen, from Swiss Re and B3i discussed how blockchain can impact the insurance industry. Blockchain is defined as a digital data structure for identifying and tracking information across a network of computers. Blockchain provides a transparent and secure way to track and distribute the information. In insurance, we are talking about the information chain between the risk (policyholder) to the insurer, to the reinsurer and then to the capital markets. The problem with data now: Decreasing quality of the original risk data. Higher operational risk and cost. Information asymmetry. Capital markets ill
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