I’ve been working hard this session on a bill to protect the privacy of injured workers.

I was proud to serve as the vice-chair of the Pinnacol Interim Committee, which met over the summer.  The committee examined issues related to Colorado’s quasi-government workers’ compensation insurance company.  The committee met six times and discovered several problem areas with Pinnacol, including: small businesses are paying workers comp insurance rates 10% higher than they should, Pinnacol has a bonus incentive system to deny claims, and Pinnacol spent $4.7 million to spy on thousands of injured workers even though only 11 were convicted of fraud.

We passed seven bills to address those specific concerns among others.  I passed a bill through the interim committee to limit spying by workers’ comp insurance companies of injured workers to only cases where the insurer has a reasonable basis to suspect fraud.  Currently, Pinnacol initiates spying even if there is no suspicion of a worker conducting fraud.  We heard testimony from several injured workers who believe that Pinnacol has been abusing its ability to spy, perhaps even using it as an intimidation technique to help secure a settlement.  Many injured workers felt treated like criminals after being spied on by Pinnacol. We should remember that these are injured workers; and a videotape of someone does not compensate for a medical care.  While Pinnacol spent $4.7 million in surveillance on thousands of workers, only 10 (out of 50,000+ claims) were actually convicted of fraud in 2008 (0.02%).   The bill would:

• Require that surveillance may only occur in cases where the insurer or employer has a reasonable basis to suspect fraud or the worker made a material misstatement concerning the claim
• If surveillance is taking place that the injured worker may request an expedited hearing before a pre-administrative law judge where the insurer must provide the injured worker with copies of materials collected
• In the expedited hearing, the Pre-ALJ may put an injunction against the surveillance if there’s no reasonable basis shown or if the worker didn’t make a material misstatement or if the insurer didn’t have a reasonable basis to initiate surveillance
• If surveillance material is collected without a reasonable basis, a $1000 fine would be charged for unauthorized surveillance
• Finally, the bill provides for protecting the identity for a witness of whistleblower who provides evidence used to prove fraud.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Workers' Rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.