Key reform measures are being implemented and the results are proving beneficial for Tennessee small businesses. Here’s a detailed update on measures taking place.
Tennessee is almost a year into the implementation of major workers’ compensation reform legislation, which has spurred positive results.
“The Workers’ Comp Reform Act of 2014 was a result in large part of seven years’ direct engagement of active NFIB members across the state,” says Jim Brown, NFIB/Tennessee State Director. “Their ongoing feedback elevated the effort, catching the attention of Gov. Bill Haslam, who led the charge for badly needed reforms.”
Brown says NFIB is pleased average workers’ compensation rates are down more than 21 percent the last two years, and he expects further relief for small business as reforms take root.
Here’s an update on some of the key reform measures:
- Causation/definition of injury—The law expands the definition of injury to include occupational disease. Only injuries that arise primarily in the course and scope of work are compensable, and the law sets a clear standard for establishing each element of an injury, with the treating physician’s opinion of whether the accident caused the injury still presumed correct. (Gone into effect for all injuries occurring on or after July 1, 2014.)
- Employer communication with treating physician—The law allows the employer or a representative to communicate with the physician treating the employee for the injury.
- Physician selection process—The law simplifies the physician selection process by requiring the provision of only one panel of three physicians, no matter the type of injury that the employee suffered.
- Assigning permanent impairment—All impairment ratings will be assigned as a percentage of impairment to the body as a whole, using the American Medical Association Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, Sixth edition.
- Temporary total disability—TTD benefits are capped immediately when the treating physician has stopped all active medical care and the employee is only receiving pain management treatment, and no additional weeks of TTD will be paid for mental injuries following a physical injury after maximum medical improvement. TTD payments made after date of MMI will be offset against permanent benefit payments. MMI occurs when active medical treatment ends.
- Permanent partial disability—An employee receives permanent disability benefits equal to his or her impairment rating if he or she returns to work with any employer earning 100 percent of the pre-injury wage. The law bases recovery on 450 weeks rather than 400 weeks, and the employee will no longer have 400 weeks following return to work to file a claim for reconsideration.
- Treatment guidelines—The law requires the Workers’ Compensation Administrator to adopt a set of advisory guidelines for the treatment of workers’ compensation injuries by Jan. 1, 2016. (The Division of Workers’ Compensation drafted rules and is currently reviewing them for release and public comment in June.)
- Court—Eight judges were appointed in June 2014 to the Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims, and three were appointed to the Appeals Board in August 2014. Court policies and procedures have been developed, implemented and tweaked, and appointees have been trained accordingly.
- Ombudsman program—In June 2014, the BWC hired three ombudsmen, who received extensive training.
