The Best Tidbits of News from the Workers Comp Community

Chopped Chef

by Ted Tafaro and Frank Zuccarello, published in Risk Management Magazine

“If you are a Baby Boomer, you probably remember the cooking show The French Chef. Filmed live and uncut, you could hear the pots and pans bang, oven doors squeak, and chef Julia Child’s singsong patter about life in the kitchen. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but Child became a pop-culture icon and was in many ways the first true celebrity chef.

But somewhere along the way that tiny kitchen on Julia Child’s low-budget set became “Kitchen Stadium” on Food Network’s popular Iron Chef series. It became a place where chefs enter a culinary arena like gourmet gladiators, accompanied by blaring music, blinding lights that could illuminate an airport runway and the almost surreal sight of a man hoisting a $100,000 camera on his back while zooming in on the perfect close-up of a stick of butter melting in a frying pan.”

Henry Seager’s 1910 Book on Social Insurance

In 1910, Columbia University Professor of Political Economy, Henry Rogers Seager, published one of the first American books on social insurance. This work, “Social Insurance: A Program of Social Reform” is both a classic and an early exposition of the philosophical movement for social insurance in America. The philosophy expressed by Seager would be the same general viewpoint favored by many of the founders of Social Security in America. Seager’s books expresses the thinking of Americans toward this new idea of social insurance which had in origins in Europe at the end of the 19th century.

News From Lexis Nexis

“Love It or Hate It: Medicare Secondary Payer Enforcement Is Here to Stay, by Jennifer C. Jordan, Esq. Progress is the theme of this year’s update to The Complete Guide to Medicare Secondary Payer Compliance, 2012 Edition (available in October). Nothing has improved so much that people don’t still cringe at the mention of MSAs, but after 10 years of frustration over CMS acting like a dictatorial monarchy, things have started to give a little. Beginning with CMS voluntarily and preemptively making some efficient and cost-effective changes in the handling of low dollar liability settlements, we are now on the brink of getting official federal regulations to govern the handling of future medical allocations. This is where we finally find out if the United States Constitution really works.”

“Worker Awarded Additional Benefits When Retirement Not Voluntary, by Thomas A. Robinson. When a claimant is unable to obtain employment because of his or her physical condition, medical evidence that the claimant could perform such work if it were available generally will not defeat the status of total disability. Sometimes, however, there is an issue as to whether the claimant has withdrawn from the labor force altogether, as by devoting full time to obtaining an education, or by electing to retire. If the decision to retire is connected to the industrial injury, however, the claim will usually not be defeated. For example, an Ohio appellate court recently held that …Read more about this case and other cases involving tort action against carrier, toxic tort & exclusive remedy, and snakebite.”

“Barry Bloom to Speak at National Workers’ Comp Conference. LexisNexis has partnered with the National Workers’ Compensation Conference to create an enhanced legal track for attorneys and other workers’ comp professionals Nov. 7-9, 2012. View the program agenda. There are 15 members of the Larson’s National Workers’ Compensation Advisory Board speaking at this event. You don’t want to miss this conference! Take advantage of the special discount for all LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation Law Community members. Community membership is free at our site. We are pleased to announce that LexisNexis author Barry Bloom will be speaking on A Blueprint for Successful High-Exposure Claims Closures, part of the claims management track at the conference.”

Author Michael B. Stack, CPA, Director of Operations, Amaxx Risk Solutions, Inc. is an expert in employer communication systems and part of the Amaxx team helping companies reduce their workers compensation costs by 20% to 50%. He is a writer, speaker, and website publisher. www.reduceyourworkerscomp.com. Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.

WORKERS COMP MANAGEMENT MANUAL: www.WCManual.com

Do not use this information without independent verification. All state laws vary. You should consult with your insurance broker or agent about workers comp issues.

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