At the 2017 WCIRB Annual Conference, a session discussed the how changes in medical science are impacting workers compensation. The speakers were: Roman Kownacki, M.D., Chief Medical Director, Occupational Health, Kaiser Permanente Linda Radler, WCIRB Managing Director, Medical Analytics Opioids California is working to develop a prescription drug formulary and the expectation is that will lead to a reduction in opioid use. Other states that have adopted formularies have experienced this impact. Currently the top 1% of physicians in California are prescribing 33% of all opioids in the workers’ compensation system. This means 90 physicians are having this significant impact.
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At the 2017 WCIRB Annual Conference Dave Bellusci, WCIRB Executive Vice President and Chief Actuary, presented an update on the state of California workers’ compensation. The highlights: Premiums in California have doubled from 2009 to 2015. This is a combination of rate increases and payroll increases. Since 2015 the premium growth has moderated due to rates being lower and most of the growth is due to payroll increases. In 2016 California represented 29% of the countrywide workers’ compensation premiums. This is up from 19% in 2009 and driven by strong economic recovery and higher rates in the state. Only 11%
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At the 2017 PRIMA Annual Conference a panel discussed strategies to for addressing cost drivers in your workers’ compensation program. The panel was: Edward Canavan – VP Workers’ Compensation Practice and Compliance, Sedgwick Dawn Watkins – Director Integrated Disability Management, Los Angeles Unified School District Zachary Gifford – Associate Director Systemwide Risk Management, The California State University Question: What are some of the complex issues you are facing in your workers’ compensation program? Answers: Provider fraud has been a huge issue in California with several providers being prosecuted in high-profile cases worth hundreds of millions of dollars. You have to
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At the 2017 PRIMA Annual Conference a panel discussed how an advocacy approach can impact your claim managment program. The panel was: Dawn Watkins – Director Integrated Disability Management, Los Angeles Unified School District Kevin Confetti – Deputy Chief Risk Officer, University of California Teresa Bartlett – SVP Medical Quality, Sedgwick An advocacy based claims program can be especially important to public entity employers due to the fact that they work in a highly political environment and they are managing taxpayer funds. Claim disputes can easily end up with negative press coverage because things that happens with public entity employers
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At the 2017 annual PRIMA conference Ariel Jenkins, CSP, MBA, ARM-E, Safety National and Kevin O’Sadnick, CSP, Safety National lead a conversation on the essential elements of school risk control programs.  School visitor management consists of entrance hardening (add extra set of doors or windows visitors have to check in), criteria for visitors (parents, teacher visitors and grandparents), 100% use of photo ID for staff/visitors, and use of security cameras.  Violent, Combative and Disruptive Students De-escalation/assault cycle training should be able to recognize this behavior and early intervention and keep an event from getting out of hand. There need to
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At the 2017 annual PRIMA conference Robert Bambino, CPCU, ARM, Wright Risk Management Company, Tim Lyons, Munich Re, and Eric Stark, Carmel CSD discuss the new and emerging risks for the public school sector.  This presentation’s focus was to plan for the future. There was a survey conducted and sent to K-12 public school administrators, educational risk sharing pools and self insured districts, PRIMA school members and risk management professionals. Majority of the respondents were in the industry 10 or more years. Top areas that present the greatest degree of risk include cyber risk, social media risk, healthcare costs, special
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At the 2017 annual PRIMA conference, Gordon Graham, Lexipol discussed how to better protect their agencies and employees as well as help individuals with their organizations to integrate risk management into daily routines by identifying the 10 families of risk.  10 Families of Risk Family 1 – External Environment – Risks arising from outside the organization that impact your operations. And we know there are a number of these and they are increasing in frequency and severity. Weather, a pandemic, terrorism, criminal street crime, and arson are all examples of external risks.  Family 2- Legal and Regulatory– Risks arising from
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At the 2017 PRIMA Annual Conference, a session discussed real-world examples of high-profile police shootings where media coverage and public perception impacted litigation with allegations of police brutality. The speakers included: Michele Molinario – Partner, Jones Skelton & Hochuli PLC John DiCaro – Partner, Jones Skelton & Hochuli PLC Are there more officer-involved shootings now than previously? There are no firm statistics on this, however, The Washington Post estimates close to 1,000 shootings last year. Thus far in 2017, there have been under 400 shootings. In spite of the publicity around officer-involved shootings, very few officers are convicted of a
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Michael Fann, ARM-P, MBA, The Pool-TN and George Dalton, ARM-P, MCM, The Pool-TN address the risk exposure communities are suspect to during a session at the 2017 PRIMA conference. Most members of the general public appreciate the services that the governmental entities provide, but there is potential for the encounter to be negative or adversarial. Public entities have influence over the “what” and the “how” of many elements of community life: land use, budgets and taxation, fire and police, schools/education, utilities and rates, codes and permitting, leisure, streets and sanitation services. A recent citizen perception study found that citizen perception
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At the 2017 PRIMA Annual Conference, a session discussed development of a municipal risk assessment program. The speakers were: Dan Hurley – Risk Manager, City of Chesapeake, VA Marilyn Rivers – Director of Risk and Safety, City of Saratoga Springs, NY A threat assessment is designed to determine vulnerabilities of employees to physical harm. Public employees are particularly vulnerable due to a variety of exposures. Understand Internal and External Threats When it comes to workplace violence most people think this is primarily internal and involves a disgruntled co-worker. However, particularly with public entity employers, the main threats are external. Someone
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