Privatization would be a great idea. Cut out the bureaucratic red tape and the inefficiencies of the government, and you will watch the rate plummet. Nevada and West Virginia are perfect recent examples. North Dakota will be next on the list. The monopolistic systems are very inefficient, mired down with politics, and not very responses to the injured workers.
Here is a portion of a letter recently sent to the director of the Washington State Department of Labor about 1 of our many claims experiences. Letting private insurance companies into the state is a step in the right direction. But there are many laws that need to be changed. Become a fan of the “White Buffalo Project” on facebook to show your support. You can post your claims stories good or bad.
We are a trucking company based out of Colbert, WA and have mail contracts with the United States Postal Service. We haul mail to outlying post offices from distribution centers mainly in Everett, Tacoma, and Spokane. We also have a long haul refrigerated segment. We have a total of 85 employees, about 65 trucks and 30 trailers operating.
On this claim the department just ordered back time loss dating back to July 6, 2009 for our driver for close to 11,000 dollars. This was based on medical information from an IME where a psychiatrist reviewed the 98 page claim file in 15 minutes and interviewed our driver for 2 1/2 hours and concluded that post traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit disorder, severe depression, and anxiety were made worse by his industrial injury on 4-25-09. Please note also that the attending physician omitted medical documentation which the IME psychiatrist never had access to. But I don’t think it would have made any difference being that she only spent 15 minutes reviewing the file. She received $893.15 for the 15 minute review of the file, interviewing our driver for 2 1/2 hours, and concluding her findings. Unless she is an accomplished speed reader we question her understanding of our drivers case.
Please see attached document in which I have made a complaint to the Department of Health regarding the attending physician Gary. Also note my complaint was reviewed by a panel of doctors on 12-30-09 and they decided to investigate the complaint and are in the process of assigning an investigator. I should consider making a complaint against the IME psychiatrist as well for incompetence.
This guy totals out our vehicle on 4-25-09. Says he swerved to miss a dog and then hits a telephone pole. A witness that was following him said the truck just all of a sudden swerved ran into the telephone pole and never applied the brakes nor saw any animals. They stopped and checked on our driver, when they approached our truck our driver thru a beer can out the window. Law enforcement arrived and found a six pack of beer with 1 missing, another bottle of alcohol which was not identified, and a plastic Ziploc bag with pills in it that were unmarked. The officer also incompetent only ordered a alcohol test which was done after our driver was transported to the hospital registered at .00. It is illegal to have alcohol in the cab of a commercial vehicle let alone consume it. Our driver admitted in an email that he was drinking. I shared this with the Federal Motor Carrier Administration and they so much as said they can’t do anything about it.
Our attorney was working on this case because you just can’t fire anyone anymore for common sense without running the risk of a wrongful termination suit or some other form of complaint with any number of different government agencies state or federal. He was trying to find out if law enforcement was going to prosecute our driver for DUI in this case. Completely by accident he found out about a DUI charge against our driver that occurred on 3-31-09. In where our driver was charged with DUI after the state lab confirmed diazepam, nordiazepam, temazepam, oxazepam, and tramadol in his system. These were listed as CNS depressants. We believe that these were the drugs that affected our driver and were the cause of the accident on 4-25-09. I believe if the officer who I referred to earlier as incompetent would have ordered a drug test, he most likely would have found the same result as they did from the DUI charge on 3-31-09. See attached letter from the attendin phyiscian that he drafted on 6-16-09 to help our driver with the DUI Charge of 3-31-09. Please note the Department of Labor nor the IME had access to this document as well because the doctor withheld it from the department.
After I reviewed the IME report I met with an Occupational Nurse and a Consultant of Risk Management both part of the Department of Labor here in Spokane about this claim on 11/24/09. The nurse thought our driver had an agenda to perpetuate medical and time loss benefits. I shared the medical documentation with the department that I had received from our driver in his attempt to get his job back. All of these documents are attached to this email regarding the complaint against the attending physcian with the Department of Health or are in the claim file. The nurse said that she would talk to the claims manager and file an addendum with the IME psychiatrist asking some specific questions. I have been watching this claim every few days since our drivers accident along with several other claims and noticed on 1-9-10 that the department sent out back time loss to our driver and I was appalled. I sent the claims manager a secure message asking what the addendum to the IME stated. He called me back on 1-11-10 and said there was never an addendum filed to the IME and the department can’t just let a claim hang in the balance and had to make a decision based upon the medical that they have. Oh well those nurses are pretty busy sometimes. Apparently not much motivation or accountability to do your job within L & I.
So you see Ms. Director I have spent the last 6 months putting most all of my effort into trying to reduce claim costs, fraudulent claims, and claims that are unnecessarily perpetuated. Meeting and talking with risk managers, occupational nurses, vocational counselors. I have even talked to risk managers in Tacoma and Everett to speak at our safety meetings to explain how workers compensation insurance works and how the rates directly effects our employees but I have not been able to put that together as of yet. I was actually a little worried about doing that because I did not want to solicit claims. But you know what it doesn’t really matter. I have concluded that if an employee wants to file a claim for falling off a ladder at home painting their house and then say they did it at work or whatever other scenario you can come up with. Bottom line is they can do it and get away with it. It is a running joke in our office every time we hear of any possible injury no matter how minor we try to make up an accident that we could have had to cause the injury and how to relate it to work and remain on time loss or what we could receive for a ppd. All we have to do is look in the claim an account center to find a suitable doctor and if the claim doesn’t go our way we can get the matching attorney for that doctor. That way we can maximize the time loss benefits before we get the attorney and lose 30%. We joke about it but the fact of the matter is it really is not funny at all.
So for me it has not been really about working on improving our business and finding new customers. It’s all about dealing with State of Washington and the Department of Labor. You and the Department somehow justify paying claimants such as our driver and many others which I will address later as well. Then you turn around and raise our risk class base rate 10% this year and move our experience rating from 1.56 to 1.76. I have heard talk about keeping the “fund” solvent. What about the business’s of Washington State solvency? Does anyone in the Department of Labor, the legislature, or the governor’s office consider that? I will give credit to L&I risk managers in helping us with some of our claims and have had some effect even though it has not had a positive effect on our experience rating as of yet. But in hind sight I have been doing the job of your claims managers and investigators. There isn’t anyone in the department that I am aware of advocating for our interests on our behalf in an effort to lower claims and/or claim costs. Isn’t that the departments responsibility? Isn’t that why our company currently pays $2.0568 per hour and our employees pay .5926 cents an hour?
The answer is our company and our employees are getting little to nothing for their money. If we decide to change workers comp carriers in the State of Washington because we are not satisfied with our current carrier we can’t. If we stopped paying our premium’s first we would be charge 20% interest. If we continued to not pay you would be out knocking on our door to collect. Or seek some other means of collecting.
Privatization would be a great idea. Cut out the bureaucratic red tape and the inefficiencies of the government, and you will watch the rate plummet. Nevada and West Virginia are perfect recent examples. North Dakota will be next on the list. The monopolistic systems are very inefficient, mired down with politics, and not very responses to the injured workers.
Here is a portion of a letter recently sent to the director of the Washington State Department of Labor about 1 of our many claims experiences. Letting private insurance companies into the state is a step in the right direction. But there are many laws that need to be changed. Become a fan of the “White Buffalo Project” on facebook to show your support. You can post your claims stories good or bad.
We are a trucking company based out of Colbert, WA and have mail contracts with the United States Postal Service. We haul mail to outlying post offices from distribution centers mainly in Everett, Tacoma, and Spokane. We also have a long haul refrigerated segment. We have a total of 85 employees, about 65 trucks and 30 trailers operating.
On this claim the department just ordered back time loss dating back to July 6, 2009 for our driver for close to 11,000 dollars. This was based on medical information from an IME where a psychiatrist reviewed the 98 page claim file in 15 minutes and interviewed our driver for 2 1/2 hours and concluded that post traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit disorder, severe depression, and anxiety were made worse by his industrial injury on 4-25-09. Please note also that the attending physician omitted medical documentation which the IME psychiatrist never had access to. But I don’t think it would have made any difference being that she only spent 15 minutes reviewing the file. She received $893.15 for the 15 minute review of the file, interviewing our driver for 2 1/2 hours, and concluding her findings. Unless she is an accomplished speed reader we question her understanding of our drivers case.
Please see attached document in which I have made a complaint to the Department of Health regarding the attending physician Gary. Also note my complaint was reviewed by a panel of doctors on 12-30-09 and they decided to investigate the complaint and are in the process of assigning an investigator. I should consider making a complaint against the IME psychiatrist as well for incompetence.
This guy totals out our vehicle on 4-25-09. Says he swerved to miss a dog and then hits a telephone pole. A witness that was following him said the truck just all of a sudden swerved ran into the telephone pole and never applied the brakes nor saw any animals. They stopped and checked on our driver, when they approached our truck our driver thru a beer can out the window. Law enforcement arrived and found a six pack of beer with 1 missing, another bottle of alcohol which was not identified, and a plastic Ziploc bag with pills in it that were unmarked. The officer also incompetent only ordered a alcohol test which was done after our driver was transported to the hospital registered at .00. It is illegal to have alcohol in the cab of a commercial vehicle let alone consume it. Our driver admitted in an email that he was drinking. I shared this with the Federal Motor Carrier Administration and they so much as said they can’t do anything about it.
Our attorney was working on this case because you just can’t fire anyone anymore for common sense without running the risk of a wrongful termination suit or some other form of complaint with any number of different government agencies state or federal. He was trying to find out if law enforcement was going to prosecute our driver for DUI in this case. Completely by accident he found out about a DUI charge against our driver that occurred on 3-31-09. In where our driver was charged with DUI after the state lab confirmed diazepam, nordiazepam, temazepam, oxazepam, and tramadol in his system. These were listed as CNS depressants. We believe that these were the drugs that affected our driver and were the cause of the accident on 4-25-09. I believe if the officer who I referred to earlier as incompetent would have ordered a drug test, he most likely would have found the same result as they did from the DUI charge on 3-31-09. See attached letter from the attendin phyiscian that he drafted on 6-16-09 to help our driver with the DUI Charge of 3-31-09. Please note the Department of Labor nor the IME had access to this document as well because the doctor withheld it from the department.
After I reviewed the IME report I met with an Occupational Nurse and a Consultant of Risk Management both part of the Department of Labor here in Spokane about this claim on 11/24/09. The nurse thought our driver had an agenda to perpetuate medical and time loss benefits. I shared the medical documentation with the department that I had received from our driver in his attempt to get his job back. All of these documents are attached to this email regarding the complaint against the attending physcian with the Department of Health or are in the claim file. The nurse said that she would talk to the claims manager and file an addendum with the IME psychiatrist asking some specific questions. I have been watching this claim every few days since our drivers accident along with several other claims and noticed on 1-9-10 that the department sent out back time loss to our driver and I was appalled. I sent the claims manager a secure message asking what the addendum to the IME stated. He called me back on 1-11-10 and said there was never an addendum filed to the IME and the department can’t just let a claim hang in the balance and had to make a decision based upon the medical that they have. Oh well those nurses are pretty busy sometimes. Apparently not much motivation or accountability to do your job within L & I.
So you see Ms. Director I have spent the last 6 months putting most all of my effort into trying to reduce claim costs, fraudulent claims, and claims that are unnecessarily perpetuated. Meeting and talking with risk managers, occupational nurses, vocational counselors. I have even talked to risk managers in Tacoma and Everett to speak at our safety meetings to explain how workers compensation insurance works and how the rates directly effects our employees but I have not been able to put that together as of yet. I was actually a little worried about doing that because I did not want to solicit claims. But you know what it doesn’t really matter. I have concluded that if an employee wants to file a claim for falling off a ladder at home painting their house and then say they did it at work or whatever other scenario you can come up with. Bottom line is they can do it and get away with it. It is a running joke in our office every time we hear of any possible injury no matter how minor we try to make up an accident that we could have had to cause the injury and how to relate it to work and remain on time loss or what we could receive for a ppd. All we have to do is look in the claim an account center to find a suitable doctor and if the claim doesn’t go our way we can get the matching attorney for that doctor. That way we can maximize the time loss benefits before we get the attorney and lose 30%. We joke about it but the fact of the matter is it really is not funny at all.
So for me it has not been really about working on improving our business and finding new customers. It’s all about dealing with State of Washington and the Department of Labor. You and the Department somehow justify paying claimants such as our driver and many others which I will address later as well. Then you turn around and raise our risk class base rate 10% this year and move our experience rating from 1.56 to 1.76. I have heard talk about keeping the “fund” solvent. What about the business’s of Washington State solvency? Does anyone in the Department of Labor, the legislature, or the governor’s office consider that? I will give credit to L&I risk managers in helping us with some of our claims and have had some effect even though it has not had a positive effect on our experience rating as of yet. But in hind sight I have been doing the job of your claims managers and investigators. There isn’t anyone in the department that I am aware of advocating for our interests on our behalf in an effort to lower claims and/or claim costs. Isn’t that the departments responsibility? Isn’t that why our company currently pays $2.0568 per hour and our employees pay .5926 cents an hour?
The answer is our company and our employees are getting little to nothing for their money. If we decide to change workers comp carriers in the State of Washington because we are not satisfied with our current carrier we can’t. If we stopped paying our premium’s first we would be charge 20% interest. If we continued to not pay you would be out knocking on our door to collect. Or seek some other means of collecting.
Ben Havens
And not to mention would be a great boon to insurance agents In the private sector increasing their earnings.
We could hire any redundant government employees that can compete in the private sector to work for the agencies
Agencies can add mass & get better health insurance rates also!!