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HR Horrors Part Deux: Workers Comp

Guest post by: Betsey Nash

Article Overview: More HR horror stories... When it comes to workers comp, how proactive do you need to be?

HR Horrors Part Deux: Workers Comp

In the spirit of the times (Halloween), here's an HR horror: The Oregon Supreme Court ruled last summer that an employer had to pay for an employee's knee replacement surgery - worker's comp injury, they said. OK, fine. And because the physician said the surgery would be a waste of time unless the employee lost weight, the court also ruled that the employer had to pay for the . . . . . you guessed it: weight loss surgery. Wait a minute: Doesn't that mean that the weight was a cause of the injury? So, what about a pre-existing condition exclusion? Good questions. Nope.

An Indiana Appellate Court made a similar ruling about pre-existing obesity and a subsequent injury.

The SLO-based Human Resources Association of the Central Coast (HRACC) is hosting a panel discussion on wellness, employer costs, lifestyles, and health care at their next meeting, November 10th, 2009. With employers unable to fend off the exponential increase in insurance premiums every year, they are turning to wellness programs. We have got to make our employees use less of their benefit allotment, they say, otherwise premiums can only continue to rise.

This is not new: Absenteeism due to illness costs hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity every year. A healthier employee works with greater efficiency, gets along better with their co-workers, experiences less stress, and has better attendance. We instituted a wellness program at the Home Depot in Thousand Oaks in the 90's: We sponsored walks and bike rides, installed a basketball hoop, put healthy food in break room machines, and even had massage therapists give shoulder massages to employees on their breaks. We had our blood pressure taken and cholesterol levels checked. And it worked. For the handful of people who committed to the program, they emerged leaner, stronger, healthier, and more efficient. One employee even stopped smoking.

Long-time central coast resident, Michael Framberger makes a living traveling around the world assisting businesses implement health-inducing programs for their employees. He's in great demand.

Whatever the health care legislation finally looks like when it emerges from Washington, it will affect business owners and workers. So your local human resources professionals are arming themselves with all the information they can get:

• Are employer-sponsored incentives for wellness lifestyles such as smoking vs. non-smoking; obesity or safe weight; high cholesterol, blood pressure worth the money? How long before they pay off?
• How are these "lifestyles" measured in order to save on health care premiums? Smoker rates vs. non-smoker rates? Can they work like good driving records in auto insurance?
• Are incentives for wellness really penalties for illness and therefore, a form of discrimination?
• Do we have to accommodate obesity under the ADA? How about alcoholism?
• And what are the HIPAA requirements for wellness programs?

I'll report on what we learn in the next column. Should be right around Thanksgiving. Perfect timing.

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Article Tags: horror stories, preexisting conditions, workers comp



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Patent information - I'm also interested in Part 2. Thanks.
Patent Process - Interesting to hear your experiences with the patent process - what's Part 2?
Re: Attention Age Doctrine - Hi Andy, So how did you find of "The Attention Age Doctrine" Part 1? And has following its guidelines yielded any positive results yet?
To get the quickest return.... open an Ebay store? - As anyone who lives near a CompUSA store knows, the whole chain is going out of business, and have been since December. When I visited them then, they were only offering 10% off, and I didn't bother to buy anything. Today, stuff was at 20% to 40% off. Unfortunately, digital cameras were only at 20% off, nevertheless I bought a ViviCam 7320 for $103 (befor taxes.) The store normally sells them for $129.99. (And, amusingly, I just checked Amazon and I could have bought a new one there for $99! Course I'd've had to pay postage... And of course it's thanks to the discount stuff offered by Amazon et al that Comp USA has been driven out of business.) Back to the topic. My store is going to stay open til everything is sold, so there's a possibility that things'll get down to 50% to 75% off. So if one had some money to invest, one could buy various things at those prices , and then sell at Ebay for a profit. Now, I'm not knowledgeable enough about electronics to know which things are going to be supplanted soon by newer models...but someone who did could go into [i:2elpuknb]their [/i:2elpuknb]store and perhaps make a killing? And then, sell it all again on Ebay for a profit? Similarly, one could keep an eye out for all "going out of business" sales, invest a grand in likely looking stuff that has been deeply discounted, and sell that stuff on ebay as well.
Re: Getting ready to sell by childhood baseball card collection. - Part of my holding on to them came from me not knowing how to sell them effectively. If I took them to a card store I'd get pennies on the dollar. If I sold them online I'd get closer to market value but it would be way too time consuming. I then recently discovered that a family member of a friend of mine sold collector cards on eBay as a side business so I asked if she would sell mine and take a commission on the sale. She agreed so I have until Thursday to get it all organized!


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