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Sep 01
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EMPLOYERS REAP GREATEST SAVINGS FROM FULL REPLACEMENT CONSUMER-DIRECTED PLANS

By Employment Resources

Consumer-directed health care plans can lead to savings for employers, according to two recent studies. Savings are greater for full replacement plans, or when the consumer-directed plan offered as an option is implemented in conjunction with strategies that foster engaged consumerism, education, and wellness initiatives.

One of the studies, from Aetna, reviewed health care claims and utilization data from 2.6 million plan members, 410,000 of whom were enrolled in a consumer-directed plan that included a Health Savings Account (HSA) or Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA). Cost savings were reported as follows:

  • For full replacement plans, employers saved $21 million per 10,000 members over a five-year period.
  • Employers that offered the consumer-directed plan as an option to a traditional health care plan saw $7 million in savings per 10,000 members over a five-year period.
  • Employers that offered the consumer-directed plan as an option, but additionally implemented certain identified strategies, recorded $23 million in savings per 10,000 members over a five-year period. These strategies included nurturing a workplace culture that encouraged employees to be engaged health care consumers; implementing a focused and ongoing education program; offering wellness programs and incentives for healthy behavior; fully covering preventive health care services; and designing the consumer-directed plan to create the appropriate amount of employee responsibility. This type of high-level plan savings also was achieved by employers offering the consumer-directed plan as an option, when they also encouraged enrollment in the plan through low employee premium contributions and/or increased employer contributions to the HSA or HRA.

Research from the University of Minnesota funded through the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and the Department of Health and Human Services found that full replacement consumer-directed health care plans achieved a level of savings not seen in previous studies in which employees had the option of choosing another type of health plan. Data from this study came from four large employers covering more than 61,000 plan members, and examined claims and enrollment data for the year prior to and the year following consumer-directed plan implementation. One employer saw a 4.1% decrease in total plan expenditures and another saw a decrease of close to 1%. The other two firms both saw increases, but only of 1.3% and 3.6%, both well below reported national health care cost trends for the year.

Both studies also looked at consumer-directed plan members’ use of preventive care services. The Aetna study found that, compared to PPO members, consumer-directed plan members sought preventive care more often, and accessed screenings for diabetes and breast and cervical cancer at the same or higher levels. The Minnesota study, in contrast, found that total replacement consumer-directed plans led to a decrease in use of preventive care services, even though such care was covered at 100% with no cost sharing in the studied plans. The authors speculated that because patients sometimes are reminded of the need for preventive care when seeing a doctor for other reasons, a decline in the frequency of non-preventive care visits could be leading to the observed reduction in use of preventive care. Since regular use of preventive services is important in the maintenance of good health, these latter study findings would indicate that communications and education about the availability of preventive care services under the consumer-directed plan will be needed in order to sustain savings over time.

Sep 01
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EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS: GET YOUR DUCKS IN A ROW

By Risk Management Bulletin

Your level of preparation for emergencies will determine how well your workers and your facility survive these incidents.

Of course, the nature and scale of your emergency planning and compliance effort depend on the kind of business you’re in and the types of workplace emergencies you and your employees are most likely to experience. However, every employer needs a plan that anticipates the worst and prepares employees to survive any possible event — even the most catastrophic.

Your level of preparation will also establish how OSHA views your compliance with emergency action requirements. OSHA standards often refer to workplace emergencies. For example, subparts E, H, K, L, and Z of the general industry standards all mention emergency preparedness and list a number of mandatory rules.

Checklists can enhance your emergency action plan and help keep your workplace and your employees safe and in compliance with OSHA regulations. Here are a few of the critical questions you need to ask:

  • Do you have a written emergency action plan that spells out the what, when, how, and who of emergency response?
  • Are all your employees familiar with your emergency action plan?
  • Do workers have assigned evacuation routes and designated gathering places outside your facility?
  • Have you established and tested effective communications systems for use during workplace emergencies?
  • Do employees understand how to carry out any emergency duties they’ve been assigned?
  • Do they know how and to whom to report workplace emergencies?
  • Are your alarm systems in compliance with the requirements of 29 CFR 1910.165 (Employee Alarm Systems)?
  • Do you have functioning emergency equipment such as fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems?
  • Do you hold regular fire drills, evaluate performance, and retrain as necessary?

For a free consultation on your emergency action plan, please get in touch with our risk management professionals.

Sep 01
Love0

STEER YOUR WORKERS TOWARD SAFER DRIVING

By Risk Management Bulletin

Vehicle accidents on or off the job can create serious problems for you, your organization, your employees, and their families.

Consider these facts:

  • Motor vehicle accidents are the nation’s most common cause of both accidental death and workplace fatalities (causing one in four fatal work injuries).
  • There’s a motor vehicle-related injury every 10 seconds — and a fatality every 12 minutes. Many of these accidents occur during the workday or during commuting time.
  • Motor vehicle crashes cost employers $60 billion a year. The average crash costs $16,500, and if an injury results, the tab can reach $74,000 or higher. When a worker dies in a traffic accident, costs can top $500,000.

More than 40% of traffic-related deaths involve alcohol, and another 20% result from the use of illegal drugs. Unfortunately, all too many workers grab a quick drink or smoke a joint on their lunch hour, including those who drive on the job — and even more employees stop off for a few cold ones on the way home.

You’re in an ideal position to help prevent many of these deaths, injuries, and costs by making sure that your employees understand the risks and take the proper precautions whenever they get behind the wheel — whether it’s in a company vehicle or their own car.

Use statistics, photos, or videos of traffic crashes, stories from your own experience, and other “shock” tactics to shake employees out of complacency about driving hazards. Reinforce the message that highway accidents can, and often do, have a tragic impact. Each day, these mishaps hurt not only drivers who cause accidents, but also passengers, people in other vehicles, and the families of all those injured or killed.

Sep 01
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ALTERNATIVE RISK FINANCING: SIZE DOESN’T MATTER

By Risk Management Bulletin

Most medium-sized and smaller companies protect themselves against their property and liability exposures by purchasing Commercial insurance, while large corporations and government agencies prefer to use some type of alternative risk financing for this purpose. However, businesses of any size can employ this tool to enjoy such benefits as improved cash flow and a lower total cost of risk.

Using alternative risk requires internal management discipline and a willingness to commit the appropriate resources. Size isn’t that important. The main criterion is losses. As a rule of thumb, alternative risk financing makes sense if a business has approximately $1 million of annual losses in a single line. The claims should have these characteristics:

  • Reasonable predictability
  • Moderate volatility
  • Minimal exposure to a catastrophic event
  • High frequency and low severity – meaning that a business should have at least several dozen losses a year, most of less than $50,000. For example, a large hotel or bank would probably experience a number of small Workers Compensation claims, but few large claims.

Casualty insurance products (such as Workers Comp, General Liability and Auto Liability) are the best candidates for alternative risk financing. Because Comp and Liability claims tend to be paid over one to five years or more, insurers of these lines generate substantial investment income on their premium reserves until losses are fully paid. By using alternative risk financing, you can invest your funds elsewhere, rather than paying premiums to the insurance company.

Insurers have developed a number of colorful terms for what amounts to a handful of alternative risk financing techniques. These methods include:

  • Excess insurance
  • Reinsurance
  • Guaranteed cost
  • Retrospective rating
  • Large deductible
  • Self-insurance
  • Captive insurance

Our risk management professionals would be happy to work with you in developing an alternative program that’s tailored to your needs. Just give us a call.

Aug 01
Love0

Form of the Month

By Your Employee Matters

VIDEO SURVEILLANCE POLICY
(PDF)

More and more employers are using video to monitor employee and customer activity. Use this checklist to make sure you get it right.

(HR That Works Users can access this form in Word format by logging on to the site).

Aug 01
Love0

USE WORKSTATION ERGONOMIC ASSESSMENT TO PREVENT AND REMEDIATE REPETITIVE STRAIN INJURY

By Your Employee Matters

Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) is the No. 1 occupational health problem in the U.S., resulting in more than $20 billion a year in Workers Compensation costs (according to OSHA), plus another $100 billion in lost productivity, employee turnover, and other expenses (Agency for Health Care Policy and Research).

RSIs develop as a result of repeated exposure to ergonomic risk factors, one of which is the risk associated with the improper set-up of an employee’s workstation. Thousands of people are diagnosed each year with some kind of impairment directly related to poorly designed workstations.

RSIs result from an accumulation of tension and strain in the body. Ergonomics is the practice of adapting a job or the work environment to the person so that they can work without harmful strain or injury. Effective ergonomics reduces discomfort and injuries, while increasing job satisfaction and productivity (University of Washington, Environmental Health & Safety). When bodies are able to perform work that is within their appropriate range-of-motion, less strain is absorbed by the muscular-skeletal system.

Employees operating in an ergonomically correct workstation environment can reduce the possibility of acquiring an RSI. Every component of the workstation – seating, keyboard, monitor, mouse; the reach and range and positioning of all a worker’s “tools of the trade;” how employees sit (or stand) or position themselves while working – is critical to managing the amount of strain imposed on the body on a daily basis (and cumulatively, day after day). Employers can use ergonomic assessment to ensure that employees are working at the proper height, angle, and location in terms of seating, keyboards, monitors, and other office equipment.

Ergonomic assessment should be “Job One” whenever a new employee comes on board, a critical piece of the “how” they will perform essential tasks and whether, over time, they acquire an RSI.

Through solving ergonomic problems, an employer can accomplish the primary goal of RSI prevention, while enhancing the productivity and job satisfaction of individual employees. Effective ergonomic outcomes result from identifying the ergonomic risk factors associated with employees and their specific task-set – and then systematically eliminating or reducing their exposure to the identified risk factors.

There are three approaches to this process:

  1. Engineering controls: Physical changes to a job that eliminate or materially reduce the presence of RSI hazards, such as changing, modifying, or redesigning workstations, tools, facilities, equipment, materials, and processes, and work practice controls (changes in the way a job is performed). This includes using good body mechanics and lifting techniques, rotating or varying tasks throughout the day to minimize muscle fatigue, and using tools properly.
  2. Administrative controls: Management-controlled work practices and policies designed to reduce exposures to RSI hazards by changing the way work is assigned or scheduled (such as employee rotation, job enlargement, and employer-authorized changes in the pace of work).
  3. Ergonomic assessment: Employing such tools as The NIOSH Guide to Manual Lifting, postural assessments, risk factor checklists, task frequency and duration assessments, force/weight measurements, dimension measurements, anthropometry data comparisons, energy demand assessment, body mechanics assessment, and assessment of environmental factors. An ergonomic assessment should include an interview of the employee to obtain information about their position duties, an evaluation of their workstation, and observation of them performing work tasks.

Conclusion

To help prevent RSIs, consider workstation ergonomic assessment and modifications as soon as an employee is hired, especially for computer users or other employees who perform repetitive work. For employees who are already working, changes in workstation set-up or purchase of ergonomic equipment can allow them to continue working and possibly avoid a lost-time, lost-productivity injury. Ergonomic assessments that lead to effective workstation and task-process outcomes can improve workstation “fit,” while increasing employee satisfaction and productivity.

Related Job Accommodation Network (JAN) publications:

Accommodation Ideas for Cumulative Trauma Injuries
Accessible Workstations for Office Settings

For additional resources on ergonomics, visit the JAN Resource Page.

Article courtesy of Linda Yost, M.S., CRC, (JAN Consultant – Motor/Sensory Team)

Aug 01
Love0

E-VERIFY TO BEGIN SEPTEMBER 8, 2009

By Your Employee Matters

The governments E-Verify System will become effective on September 8, 2009. Under the new system, all contractors and subcontractors working on federal projects will be required to utilize the E-Verify System to ensure that their employees are eligible to work in the United States. E-Verify is an Internet-data system operated by the DHS in partnership with the Social Security Administration. The system allows employers to electronically verify name, date of birth and social security number, along with immigration information for non-citizens, against federal databases in order to verify the identity and employment eligibility of both citizen and non-citizen hires. To read the FAQs click here.

On a related note, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced on July 8, 2009 that the Obama Administration intends to rescind regulations and procedures for employers that receive employee no-match letters from the Social Security Administration. The no-match rules were originally promulgated in 2007. A federal court, however, issued a temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the no-match rules shortly after they were published. The U.S. Senate has taken issue with Secretary Napolitano’s announcement, approving an amendment that prohibits using federal funds to withdraw the regulation. The amendment was attached to the DHS Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2892) which passed the Senate on July 9, 2009. To learn more, read this PDF document and the www.ice.gov.

Aug 01
Love0

WHAT IS A DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION?

By Your Employee Matters

If you have more than 15 employees, you’re required to accommodate a disabled employee. If you’re in California, that obligation starts at five employees. Just what is an accommodation? According to the EEOC, FEHC, and Job Accommodation Network, possible job accommodations include:

  • Modifying facilities
  • Job restructuring
  • Part time or modified work schedules (creating a full time modified job is not required)
  • Reassignment to a vacant position (persons with accommodations get first dibs on those opportunities)
  • Acquisition or modification of equipment
  • Adjustment or modification of examinations, training materials, or policies
  • Provision of qualified readers or interpreters
  • Extended leaves of absence
  • Preference of disabled persons over non-disabled persons in reassignment
  • Any other accommodation idea that you or an employee or accommodation specialist can think of

Remember that obligation is mitigated by the “undue hardship” standard, under which an employer need not create an accommodation if it would be overly burdensome due to costs, overall financial resources, size of the employer, type of operations, and geographic considerations. Ultimately, the accommodated employee must to be able to do the job they were hired for. An employer is usually better off allowing an employee to try the suggested accommodation as long as there are no ancillary security or safety concerns. Employers have the incentive to find job accommodations when there are Workers Compensation-related injuries to avoid adding costs to the Work Comp system.

To prevail in a disability accommodation case, an employee must show that they could have done the job with or without an accommodation. Also, the courts have stated that employers have access to information that employees do not and have an affirmative duty to investigate possible accommodation scenarios. Finally, there’s an incredible wealth of accommodation resources on the Job Accommodation Network Web site.

Aug 01
Love0

PROPER POLICY, BUT NO TRAINING, COSTS EMPLOYER

By Your Employee Matters

A policy prohibiting workplace harassment and instructing employees on how to report it is only as effective as the training supervisors and employees receive and the level of accountability the employer requires. The federal district course case of King v. Interstate Brands Corp. offers a valuable lesson for employers that having a good policy might not be enough.

King alleged that a supervisor frequently used racial slurs to talk about him and other black employees. When complaints were logged about the supervisor with HR, the supervisor responded by claiming to be upset with the implication he was racist. King concluded that enough was enough, and eventually sued, alleging racial harassment. The employer argued that because they had a proper harassment policy, it had “exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly” incidents of harassment. The company also argued that King failed to avail himself of this policy (the Farragher defense).

In rejecting the employer’s defense and permitting the case to go to trial, the court stated that “There is sufficient evidence upon which a reasonable juror could find that King was subject to such severe and pervasive harassment as to change the terms and conditions of his employment.” Furthermore, the company’s anti-harassment policy was not communicated to the workforce (other than in the employee handbook) and was not enforced. According to the court, the totality of the employer’s actions “all suggest that a reasonable black employee would hesitate about complaining to IBC supervisors or HR about alleged harassment.”

To make sure that your employment policies “work” to either identify harassment or defend against a harassment claim, we’d recommend these steps:

  • Be sure that the policy is comprehensive, covering discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.
  • Don’t just rely on the Employee Handbook to communicate the policy.
  • Include the policy in an employee handbook, post it in the workplace, and review the policy annually with all employees.
  • Have employees sign acknowledgement of the policy.
  • Provide employees with multiple options to report a policy violation.
  • Investigate all claims promptly and thoroughly.
  • Take appropriate disciplinary or remedial action.
  • Make the policy a cultural requirement within the workplace, training supervisors and managers to report any potential violation, even if it is due to the behavior of a peer or superior.

Article courtesy of Worklaw® Network firm, Lehr Middlebrooks Vreeland (www.lehrmiddlebrooks.com).

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