Workplace violence – Workers’ Compensation?

Back in August, Ryan Korn in the Oregonian reported on laws passed in the 2005 and 2007 Oregon State Legislature addressing violence in hospitals and other health care facilities. Curiously, that link still gets you to the article, rather than a notice about paid archives. I covered the medical workplace violence bill in Safe Nurses, Safety for Nurses back in March. As I mentioned then, I work on a small inpatient unit with 20 beds, yet at that time I knew three nurses who have been permanently disabled and/or had to retire due to injuries inflicted by clients at work.

But no worries, Workers’ Compensation covers that, we presume. If you’re injured at work, you get your wages and medical bills covered, right? Wrong. I’ve recently realized close-up why Portland’s police and fire officers were so concerned about proposals to move their work-related disability coverage to the state system. It’s worse than most people would imagine.

Several weeks ago, a colleague was injured at the hospital where I work. She was slammed onto a hard surface by a large young patient, hurting her back. Several staff members witnessed the altercation. Since she had previously had back problems (many health care workers do), she had diagnostic image records showing the state of her back before the event, and the slipped discs immediately afterwards. Open and shut case for Workers Compensation, right?

Wrong, again. The case worker at SAIF (State Accident Insurance Fund, a not-for-profit independent company that covers more than half the workers’ compensation business in Oregon), alleged the injury was not work related – despite all the medical practitioners saying it is. The claims processor said that even if it were, my colleague is entitled to only two thirds of her regular pay while she’s off work. And that the worker is personally responsible for many of her work-related injury medical and caregiver bills, which SAIF will maybe pay later, maybe not, depending (it seems) on the whim of the case manager. She can’t return to work yet, as her doctors can’t say she’s medically fit. As a result of an injury at work, an employee may lose her entire savings, as well as her ability to walk without pain.

Since this incident, I’ve heard many more stories of workers having huge difficulties getting legitimate Workers Compensation cases settled. While we all want the system to avoid paying out to people making fraudulent claims when they are fit to work, anecdotal evidence suggests in some cases the balance shifts so far that real injuries at work result in huge financial losses for workers. That’s not right. A Report to the Governor in April 2006 by SAIF shows some attention has been paid to issues of fairness. But whatever progress may have been made, it seems insufficient.

No wonder the folks in the Portland Police and Fire Fighters unions were so reluctant to move from the Portland-owned-and-funded disability system to the state Workers’ Comp program.