A Florida woman who said she was kidnapped, raped and thrown out of a vehicle last year has now been charged with insurance fraud.

An area of workers' compensation that has grown in controversy over the years is when is an employee considered to be 'at work.' A question arises if an employee is injured when in a parking lot outside of their place of employment either starting their day or leaving after clocking out.

As a physician, I can't help but view our industry through a distinctly patient-centered lens. Our very reason for existing is to help injured employees get well, ideally to get them back to their pre-injury status in days or weeks.

Four states in the first week of February introduced or moved forward on workers compensation presumption bills that would make post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental ailments compensable for first responders, in a continuation of a years-long legislative trend.

In McDonald v. Symphony Bronzeville Park, LLC, 2022 IL 126511, the Illinois Supreme Court issued an opinion finding the exclusive remedy provisions of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act ('Compensation Act') 820 ILCS 305/1 et seq. does not bar an employee's claim for statutory damages under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act ('BIPA'), 40 ILCS 14/1 et seq.

An employee filed a class-action lawsuit against her employer for violating BIPA. Her employer required its employees to use a biometric timekeeping system in order to scan an employee's fingerprint for purposes of authenticating an employee and tracking their time at work. The employee alleged that her employer never obtained her written consent to store her biometric information or informed her how the information will be stored.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has updated its Workers' Compensation Medicare Set-Aside Arrangement (WCMSA) Reference Guide (Reference Guide). The latest version, Version 3.5, was published Jan. 10, 2022.

The COVID-19 omicron variant appears to be waning and several states have lifted their mask mandates in recent weeks, but legislators are just getting started when it comes to the pandemic and workers compensation.

Most people now recognize the energy savings benefits of green buildings. These buildings use less water, energy and other natural resources. In some cases, they can increase biodiversity, produce their own energy and reduce the urban heat island effect.

If you ever find yourself in a room of claims and litigation professionals and need a good icebreaker, be sure to ask the person closest to you this question: Did you find the industry, or did the industry find you?

Monday, we wrote about a proposed bill in Utah that would allow firefighters combatting fires in states other than their own to collect workers' compensation benefits if they were injured on the job. Legislators there are running into significant headwinds, in the form of paranoid accusations that they are really establishing paramilitary services to enslave people and violate the rights of citizens.

It is undisputed that the claims adjuster sits in the hot seat of the workers' compensation claims process. At the frontlines of claims management, they must balance the interests of multiple stakeholders while juggling important and often time-critical authorization decisions that impact an injured worker's care in relation to their workers' comp claim.

The health care supply chain is experiencing a multitude of disruptions, delays, wage pressures and shortages, some of which have an impact on workers' compensation medical care.

A recent webinar delved into the biopsychosocial treatment model and return to work, with special emphasis on identifying the presence of psychosocial risk factors in poor outcomes.

With the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously holding that employers and insurance companies must pay for medical marijuana when ordered by the court, and the Minnesota Supreme Court holding that federal law preempts the state's medical marijuana law, companies and claims management professionals are stuck trying to sort out a legal turf war fit for a mafia movie.

It's been almost two years since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported. In that time, we've experienced a master class in just how unprepared the U.S. was for a global pandemic.