According to a new report from New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services, merely half of the people who were injured while working in New Hampshire in 2008 had their medical costs covered by workers compensation. The survey was released by the NewHampshireDepartmentofHealthandHumanServices, titled “Work Related Injuries 2011.”
“Our study estimated that only about half of those employed for wages and injured seriously enough to require medical treatment had some or all of their treatment paid for by workers’ compensation,” according to the report. “This represents a substantial financial burden falling on private and public insurers as well as on individual families.”
The report cautioned, however, that the data, collected from telephone surveys in 2008, is imprecise “due to the small number of respondents reporting on payment for treatment.”
The total report was based on phone surveys of 6,892 adults. It indicated that close to 5 percent of workers had been injured at work seriously enough to need treatment in the prior year, which it stated was consistent with the levels discovered in other states.
The surveys have been conducted for many years, but 2008 was the first year that questions were included about compensation, partly out of concern that lack of payment options leads to underreporting of injuries on the job. If there’s no chance of getting medical costs covered, there’s little incentive for workers to report injuries.
The data in the report indicate several trends, including:
. Manufacturing industries are on the decrease in New Hampshire
. From 2000–2008 there were 127 work-related fatalities in New Hampshire
. In NH, between 2002 and 2007, 6% of all Emergency Department discharges of patients age 16 and older, were paid for by workers compensation, compared to the U.S. as a whole, where only 2% of ED discharges of patients age 16 and older were paid for by workers comp.
. Between 2002 and 2007, 28% of all NH ED visits with the expected payer of workers comp involved traumatic amputations. Of these work-related amputations, 85% involved amputation of finger(s) and 15.4% involved amputation of the thumb, compared to the U.S. where 21% of all visits involved traumatic work-related amputations, 98% of which involved amputation of the finger(s) and 15% involved amputation of the thumb.
. In 2008, workers comp awards to injured workers totaled $239,290, with the average workers comp award per covered New Hampshire worker totaling $354.
. More than 47,000 New Hampshire workers are employed in high mortality risk. occupations.
. More than 78,000 New Hampshire workers are employed in high mortality risk industries.
The survey also discovered that, in general, workers with more education had fewer injuries, presumably because they were less likely to work in physical jobs. While 4.9 percent of all New Hampshire workers came forward with an injury, the rate was 14 percent among those who did not have a high school degree, just 2.3 percent among those holding bachelor’s or higher degrees.
Another cautionary piece of information from the authors was that the survey did not cover illness, only injury, so that chronic ailments caused by workplace conditions are not included.
The survey was released by the NewHampshireDepartmentofHealthandHumanServices, titled “Work Related Injuries 2011.”
“This comprehensive report looks at the core occupational health indicators of work-related injuries and illnesses,” said Dr. José Montero, director of Public Health at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. “The report contains some important data and we hope it will be useful to our partners and the people of New Hampshire in preventing such injuries in the future.”
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
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My claim was denied because I didn’t have an accident. Wear and tear on my body isn’t good enough. Even tho I saw a doctor , chiropractor , had therapy and was ready. To go under the knife, by a specialist.