Important Settlement Out of Missouri Has North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Gurus Talking
While this blog attempts to discuss mainly “consumer friendly” information about North Carolina workers’ compensation, sometimes we turn our attention to technical – even abstruse and obscure – stories to “kick the tires” on important issues.
In that vein… a very interesting (in a subtle way) news story broke out of Jefferson City Missouri last week. The MO Attorney General, Chris Koster, finalized an arrangement with two companies that had violated MO’s workers’ comp laws. Both Specialty Risk Services, LLC (a Connecticut-based company) and Broadspire Services, Inc. (a Georgia company) were called to task for failing to file reports on behalf of companies that reported injured workers.
According to Missouri law, worker related accidents must be reported to the Missouri Division of Workers’ Compensation within 30 days. Both SRS and Broadspire on many different occasions failed to report injuries by this deadline. The settlement amount was relatively small. Certainly, you can find examples of North Carolina workers’ compensation settlements that don’t make the news that involve much more money. SRS had to pay out $75,000 to Missouri; Broadspire had to pay just $28,500. Also, per the arrangement negotiated by Koster, both companies agreed to having violated Missouri law and agreed to prevent recurrence of violations and stay in compliance for at least two years.
So it’s a small story. And it’s definitely (and, rightly) been buried in the popular press.
But the story hints at something much bigger.
Perhaps a not-insignificant slice of the inefficiencies in the North Carolina workers’ compensation system might be due to the negligence and carelessness of third-party intermediaries. Why is this interesting? Because workers’ comp experts focus nearly exclusively on insurance companies, business owners, employees, and relevant government agencies. They almost certainly don’t bring enough scrutiny to bear on intermediaries like SRS and Broadspire.
This isn’t to say these companies are necessarily bad. Rather, it’s to say that the network of players who impact the NC workers’ comp system may be both broader and deeper than the experts realize. And that means that opportunities for system waste are broader and deeper; and opportunities for powerful corrective actions that can redound to the entire system’s benefit are also possibly more abundant than we realize!
This very technical argument is probably beyond the scope of injured or ill workers who simply want help. If you need assistance to get an employer to pay out benefits, compel an insurance company to treat you fairly, or untangle the red tape that’s wrapped around your claim, get in touch with a responsible, reliable North Carolina workers’ compensation law firm.
More Web Resources:
A-G Reaches Settlement Over Worker’s Comp Violations
Broadspire
