The delivery of quality healthcare is key to mitigating the rising costs of chronic health conditions, lengthy disabilities and stubborn workers’ compensation claims. Arthur M. Southam, M.D., EVP, Health Plan Operations at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals kicked off the 24th Annual National Workers’ Compensation & Disability Conference with this session providing quality measures that positively impact chronic disease and other healthcare factors affecting claimants. Our Healthcare System Our current system is a massive economic enterprise. The United States spends approximately 50% more on healthcare than any other country in the world. In 2015, approximately 151
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At the 2015 IRMI Construction Risk Conference, Thomas Lyons (Construction Safety Manager with Gilbane) and Jennifer Wycisk (Corporate Safety Director with Webcor Builders) presented a session discussed the current state of site safety efforts. Site safety managers play a very important role in the construction industry. Their efforts prevent accidents and save lives. Safety best practices should be shared across the industry. They are not something that needs to be kept in-house as a competitive advantage. Safety professionals need to constantly learn from the experiences of others. Although the Safety Manager oversees safety on the workplace, they cannot be the
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At the 2015 IRMI Construction Risk Conference, the CEOs of two construction firms discussed how they view risk, the role of risk management and their roles in establishing risk management expectations in their organizations. The speakers were Charles Bacon III (Chairman & CEO of Limbach Facility Services LLC) and Thomas Gilbane Jr (Chairman and CEO of Gilbane, Inc). William McIntyre moderated the discussion. The session was presented in question / answer interview format. What are the prospects for the commercial and residential construction markets in 2016? The prospects for 2016 are very strong. There is a healthy pipeline of projects
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Conference Chronicles will be blogging from the 24th Annual National Workers’ Compensation & Disability Conference & Expo on November 11-13 in Las Vegas, Nevada. For 23 years, the National Workers’ Compensation and Disability Conference® (NWCDC) has been one of the leading training events for workers’ compensation and disability management professionals — attracting thousands of industry professionals each year. NWCDC is also home to the industry’s largest expo in the nation and features more than 260 vendors of claims management software, cost containment solutions, managed care services, medical/pharmaceutical products, RTW services, risk management solutions and much more. Click here for more
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Conference Chronicles will be blogging from the IRMI Construction Risk Conference on November 8-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The IRMI Construction Risk Conference brings about 1,500 leading project owners, general contractors, subcontractors, developers, insurers, and insurance agents and brokers together to explore and convey state-of-the-art ideas and techniques for improving insurance coverages, controlling insurance costs and fine-tuning risk management programs. Click here for more information about this event.

At the 2015 SIIA Annual Conference, Joseph Braun – Credit Risk Manager with Safety National discussed the challenges associated with collateral in self-insured and deductible programs. The excess self-insured marketplace is currently around $1.3 billion in written premium in the United States. This is a fairly stagnant marketplace with very few new companies entering self-insurance in the last few years. Why do states require security / collateral for self-insured employers? Collateral is held by the states to ensure that claims are paid in the event the self-insured employer becomes insolvent and is not longer able to pay their claims. How
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At the 2015 SIIA Annual Conference, a panel presented a session entitled “How Medical Red Herrings and Over-Diagnosis Drive Poor Outcomes and Big Losses”. The panel was: Dr. David Ross, Chief Medical Officer from NeuroPas Global LLC Keith Rosenbloom, Senior Strategist Workers Comp and Risk Control from Lockton Companies LLC Dr Jennifer Christian, President of Webility Corporation Over the last 20 years there has been a significant increase in treatment for back pain. This includes: 600% increase in MRIs. 400% increase in spine injections. 300% increase in back surgeries. 500% increase in opioid prescriptions. 300% increase in people disabled due
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At the 2015 SIIA Annual Conference Michael Fann from Tennessee Municipal League Risk Management Pool and Matt McDonough from Safety National discussed ways to identify and manage exposures associated with an increasingly mobile workforce. Background According to the National Safety Council, the three leading causes of roadway fatalities are drinking (31%), speeding (30%) and distracted driving (26%). Distracted driving is considered under-reported as people are hesitant to admit they were not paying attention on the road. The leading cause of workplace fatalities for several years has been roadway incidents. There are no good statistics in workers’ compensation regarding the frequency
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At the 2015 SIIA National Conference, James Harvey from Sedgwick and Bruce Singleton from MultiPlan presented a session discussing efforts at identifying medical providers who produce the best outcomes. The session was done in a Q/A format. How long have you been using outcomes based networks? Sedgwick started this in California years ago. They have developed a nationwide system that helps direct injured workers to the highest scoring medical providers.  In 2004 Concentra worked with Sedgwick to come up with a scoring system on outcomes based networks.  Why did you build and deploy outcomes based networks? Because our customers were
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At the 2015 SIIA Annual Conference, Chris Mandel and Edward Canavan from Sedgwick discussed the evolution of workers’ compensation and challenges to exclusive remedy. They also talked about alternatives to workers’ compensation. Workers’ compensation in the United States started just over 100 years ago. One of the events that helped push this forward was outrage over the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York. Over 150 people were killed in this event and the families of the workers killed received minimal compensation. Wisconsin and Massachusetts were among the first states to pass workers’ compensation laws. Many initial workers’ compensation laws were
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