News

The increase in facility costs for hospital emergency room visits has “significantly” outpaced medical inflation, with facility costs growing approximately three times faster than the hospital outpatient producer price index, according to an analysis of workers compensation emergency room costs released Friday by the National Council on Compensation Insurance. The Boca Raton, Florida-based ratings agency said in its report that…

Despite substantial reductions in recent years, opioids continue to be widely dispensed to workers with work-related injuries in several states, according to a study released Thursday by the Workers Compensation Research Institute. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based institute studied factors that are associated with longer-term opioid use, finding that the strongest predictor of such use is opioid prescribing early in a claim.…

Heath D. Shelton, a 36-year-old Smithton man, has pleaded guilty to a single count of making a false statement to receive federal disability compensation under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act. Shelton was working for the US Postal Service as a letter carrier when he injured his back in 2012. He started receiving federal disability payments for his injury. Later on,…

An insurer that covered a subcontractor must defend the contractor in the electrocution death of a subcontractor employee, an Illinois federal district court ruled Monday. Columbus, Ohio-based State Auto Property & Casualty Insurance Co. issued an insurance policy to Centralia, Illinois-based Rock Branch Ironworks Inc. for the policy period April 2018 to April 2019, according to the ruling by the…