Workers Compensation Benefits to Rise 30 Percent? | Desert Star ...

By Jackie Devereaux

?Statewide, CA ? Injured workers suffering under a plagued workers compensation insurance system may find some relief now that the governor signed Senate Bill 863 into law, bringing some much-needed reforms to the beleaguered insurance industry.

SB 863 represents a historic compromise between employers and employees that provides a rare opportunity to both increase benefits for injured workers and reduce insurance costs for employers.

SB 863 provides consistency and certainty in a ballooning $16 billion workers? compensation system. By reducing administrative costs and closing loopholes to eliminate conflicts of interest and price gouging. The bill provides for financing a long-overdue permanent disability benefit increase for injured workers. This benefit increase is estimated to be more than $700 million and will translate into a 30 percent increase in permanent disability benefits for all categories of injured workers.

This legislation also creates a $120 million catastrophic injury program that is designed to enhance the benefits for the small group of injured employees whose permanent disability ratings are disproportionately low as compared to their earnings loss due to the injury.

By establishing a binding independent medical review (IMR) system to use evidence-based medical principles to resolve medical disputes this reform shortens the timeline for approval of treatment to 30 days, greatly speeding up the courts process that can currently take up to two years.

SB 863 represents a balanced approach to issues within the California?s workers? compensation system. It provides employers with cost-saving proposals that reduce frictional costs while providing injured workers with much-needed benefit increases. Additionally, the administration has committed to an expeditious regulatory process that seeks to achieve the full extent of the projected savings associated with SB 863. The bill was drafted by Democratic State Senator Kevin De Le?n of the 22nd District representing Los Angeles.

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. commended the Legislature for ?an extraordinary workers? compensation reform bill that helps injured workers and averts an imminent crisis of skyrocketing rates. Again, Republicans have joined Democrats to work together?perhaps, a portent of good things to come,? he said.

CalChamber recognizes that the California workers? compensation system was on an unsustainable trajectory. In particular, cost pressures in the system mitigated much of the savings realized in the last round of reforms. As a result, California employers? premiums were increasing as the overall cost of the system continued to rise. ?CalChamber believes that benefits for some injured workers to be inadequate and, therefore, supports a benefit increase where appropriate.?

SB 863 addresses both of these issues: it offers proposals that reduce system costs in order to offset a benefit increase; it specifically addresses the lien epidemic; it shortens the medical-legal process; it implements an independent medical review system, and streamlines the permanent disability schedule. These reforms reduce frictional costs by reducing delays in the system and litigation. Additionally, the bill provides injured workers an increase in permanent disability benefits.

Anyone with an open claim or in litigation with a Workers? Compensation insurance company, should consider these new reforms before settling their case. It could mean the difference of a 30 percent increase in the benefits paid.

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Source: http://desertstarweekly.com/2012/11/23/workers-compensation-benefits-to-rise-30-percent/

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