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| Peter Rousmaniere | ||||||||||||||
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2008-04-15 Mulling Over Spitzer's Legacy On March 1, 2007, New York's newly elected governor said that the whole workers' compensation system "has become ossified and unresponsive." Within two weeks, Eliot Spitzer signed into law a reform package, ramrodding it through Albany's dysfunctional legislature. MORE 2008-04-01 Painkillers out of Control There are several compelling reasons why workers¿ comp adjusters should be more diligent than they currently are in overseeing the use of painkillers for chronic pain. We tend to focus on diversion, or misuse of prescribed drugs. MORE 2008-03-01 Aging Matters The median age of the American worker has increased for more than a decade. The age of the injured worker has also increased. Should these trends concern us? With even slight demographic shifts, some social and economic circles will see a marked impact. Let's not, however, have the extreme anecdote bewitch us. I will summarize what researchers tell us. MORE 2008-02-14 Shipbreaking in Mumbai Shipbreaking is a common developing-world way of describing the dismantling of ships. To avoid work-safety and environmental regulations in the developed world, many owners sell their old ocean going vessels to recycling companies in India and Bangladesh. MORE 2008-01-01 What Do Risk Managers Want? How do risk managers analyze workers' compensation? I thought I would answer that question by visiting with two teams in the Chicago office of Marsh, the giant risk advisor. One team works in its software unit, CS Stars, and with its flagship risk management information system, Stars. MORE 2007-12-01 Lower Costs, Varied Successes The last few years have been good to workers' compensation insurers. For the first time in decades they financially performed on par with what Wall Street expects from corporate America. Between 2002 and 2005 workers' comp premiums rose sharply; though they have since declined somewhat. MORE 2007-11-01 File a Claim, Get Deported? A new U.S. Census report says that almost one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English. For a while, Edgar Velazquez was one of them. But that was before the native of Chiapas, Mexico, was deported to his home country. MORE 2007-10-15 Meanderings on Improbabilities A few issues ago, I wrote that the computer is the most spirited driver of innovation in workers' compensation. But as I was walking one of the deserted roads near my hometown of Woodstock, Vt., a related question popped into my head. What are some things that could dramatically affect us should they improbably occur? MORE 2007-10-01 Chronic Pain: Getting Serious The Washington, D.C.,-based National Academy of Social Insurance reported in August that workers' compensation benefits payments continued their rise in 2005, excluding data from California. The word from NASI and other sources is that injury frequency continues to drop but severity continues to increase. MORE 2007-09-15 The 'IT' Thing in Comp The single most successful spur to innovation in workers' compensation continues to be information technology. I want to celebrate how IT is packing energy today into the analysis of workers' comp benefits. MORE 2007-09-01 Why Doctors Boycott Comp In Idaho last year, specialty physicians began to boycott the workers' compensation system when the state introduced for the first time a fee schedule. The crisis was resolved after medical lobbyists and regulators sat down to increase fees. MORE 2007-08-01 The Fresh Eyes Have It Scappoose, Ore., population 5,000 and home to the West Coast Shoe Co., is a former frontier town located not too far from the Columbia River. Since 1918, the company has been hand-making high-support leather boots for loggers and outdoor enthusiasts. MORE
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