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The legislation makes a variety of changes intended to bring the system up to date. State Rep. Brad Jacobsen said the changes will stabilize and modernize the law to ensure workers' comp is determined fairly in Michigan. Critics have said it will cut down on workers' rights and benefits.

Among the law's provisions are:

• Allowing wage loss to be demonstrated by an employee's good-faith effort to find suitable work.
• Requiring an injury to be medically distinguishable from a prior condition.
• Including pension or retirement payments that an employee was entitled to receive among amounts to be deducted from benefits.
• Expanding from 10 to 28 days the time period before an employee may be treated by his own physician.
• Allowing claims to be made either electronically or on written forms.
• Requiring magistrates to be evaluated annually rather than biennially.
• Exempting from the act a professional athlete who was hired under a contract with an out-of-state employer and injured while temporarily in Michigan, provided certain conditions were met.

January 5, 2012

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