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As an owner/operator of a state-licensed board and care home for the elderly, I can tell you that contrary to what state insurance commissioner John Garamendi is telling the press, we have been hard-hit, once again, with double-digit increases in the cost of workers' compensation ["Rates for workers' comp are dropping," News, Jan. 19]. I have been in business more than 10 years and have never once had a claim. My rates have gone from under 6 percent to more than 23 percent of payroll. And since 2003, when Garamendi claims business owners have seen average cuts totaling 13.9 percent...

Sacramento -- Francis Pecoraro is trading a San Francisco Bay area medical practice that mainly serves injured workers for one in Wilmington, N.C., that he believes will be more doctor friendly. Pecoraro, who specializes in chronic pain cases, is among a number of California doctors who say they are fighting time-consuming, uphill battles to get necessary care for workers' compensation patients. As a result, some are limiting their workers' comp practices or dropping them altogether. Pecoraro said he decided to move to a state with a "less cumbersome" workers' comp system rather than spend "more time in the office generating...

California business owners saw the average annual premium for workers' compensation insurance drop between 13.9 percent and 16.6 percent in the last six months, according to records from the state Department of Insurance. These would be the first double-digit percentage rate cuts since deregulation in 1995, savings that arose out of legislative overhauls the last two sessions. "Rates are coming down. Right now, it appears medical cost inflation has been impacted by the reforms. Medical costs were one of the primary drivers pushing rates up," said Jack Hannan, a spokesman for the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California, an...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California's workers' compensation costs are going down, but you wouldn't know it by looking at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposals. They include big increases in the state's own workers' comp costs. The Republican governor's budget predicts the state's cost of dealing with job-related injuries and illnesses among its employees will jump 30 percent over two fiscal years - despite much-touted changes Schwarznegger pushed through the Legislature last April. Jim Zelinski, a spokesman for the State Compensation Insurance Fund, a quasi-governmental agency that administers the state's workers' compensation program, said savings from the 2004 legislation and cost-cutting bills...

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to ask, but here goes. I have a friend that recently had a problem at work that landed her in the hospital. This should be covered under workman's comp. She works at a body shop at a car dealership. She had to go into the paint shop to check on a customers car and had a reaction to some fumes. Needless to say she won't be able to keep going into that area. She should be able to return to work on Monday, however,the doctor has put her on some kind...

Another of the California Highway Patrol's top administrators claims to have been injured at headquarters in Sacramento shortly before he headed out the door for retirement. Gary Townsend, one of the top three assistants of former Commissioner D.O. "Spike" Helmick, said in a workers' compensation claim that he injured his left foot and ankle as he was moving items out of his office Sept. 30. That was two weeks after the arrival of Helmick's successor, Mike Brown, who was replacing Townsend and other top administrators with his own assistants. Townsend said he put in his paperwork for retirement even before...

The Schwarzenegger administration on Thursday filed emergency regulations governing benefits for permanently disabled workers, setting terms for a revision to the state workers' compensation system that would take effect Jan. 1. Business and insurance groups praised the move but attorneys for injured workers said that it would cut payments to below 1983 levels. The new compensation schedule for workers with permanent partial disability -- those who can still work but whose injuries will impair their ability for the rest of their lives -- are intended to reduce costs and apply medical standards in deciding how serious a worker's injuries are....

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The Schwarzenegger administration on Thursday released a sweeping set of regulations aimed at revising how doctors evaluate permanent injuries to workers and how much compensation they are paid. The new regulations are a key element of the landmark reform of the state's compensation system approved by the Legislature last spring and aimed at cutting billions from the rates employers pay for insurance. The new proposal calls for the use of guidelines developed by the American Medical Association for measuring permanent disabilities. The administration also wants to employ a new formula for translating the degree of injury into...

California employers paid 38 percent more for workers' compensation insurance this year than those in the second most expensive state, Alaska, a new study shows. The nationwide survey said the gap between California and the rest of the country widened further in the past two years. In 2002, the state's employers, while still facing the highest rates in the nation, paid 16 percent more than the No. 2 state of Florida. On average, employers in January 2004 paid an average of $6.08 per $100 of payroll for premiums - $1.69 more than Alaska companies, according to a biennial survey of...

Rescuer in September 11 Attacks Denied Workers' Comp By Michael Gormley The Associated Press Thursday 16 December 2004 Albany, N.Y. - A World Trade Center worker who rushed from home on Sept. 11, 2001, to help rescue victims of the terrorist attack has been denied workers' compensation because he wasn't ordered to the scene by a boss, a court ruled Thursday. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the state Workers' Compensation Board, and against Christopher Duff's workers' compensation claims for psychological injuries. Duff had won...

A judge who can't handle "deadlines, attorneys' and parties' harassment and conflicts (with) angry, hostile litigants" probably ought to find another line of work. But a state workers' compensation judge – actually, an arbiter of money and medical benefits in workers' comp cases – has filed a workers' comp claim for, according to The Sacramento Bee, "injuries to the heart and psyche." And hers is hardly the most glaring case of judges working the workers' comp system to their personal advantage. More's the pity that it's lawful. In fact, the cost of workers' comp as a percentage of payroll at...

A death threat threw workers' compensation Judge Ruby Theophile into such an emotional tailspin that she filed her very own workers' comp claim. Even one of her doctors remarked on the irony. The situation "seems unusual if not unique," psychiatrist Warren Jones wrote in his evaluation of the Pasadena judge. It was not unique - nor even unusual. California's 150 workers' compensation judges are six times more likely to file on-the-job injury cases than their judicial counterparts in state government, a Bee investigation has found. These gatekeepers of cash and medical benefits for injured workers have claimed injuries from rearranging...

When Kathie Shuler heard from a local chiropractor who offered to treat her injuries, warning bells went off. How did Wood Chiropractic & Rehabilitation know who she was and, odder yet, that she'd recently been hurt at work? Shuler, a 50-year-old Bakersfield resident, didn't know that by appealing her workers' comp case on Aug. 6 that what she thought was her personal information officially became public -- a record made available for a small fee to anyone who asks. The same thing happened to 218,000 Californians last year, according to figures from the California Commission on Health and Safety and...

SACRAMENTO -- A state appeals court Thursday refused to block the Schwarzenegger administration from implementing regulations Jan. 1 that would limit injured employees' choice of doctors, saying the challenge by workers' attorneys was premature. The 3rd District Court of Appeal denied the California Applicants' Attorneys Association's request for an order blocking the new rules because there was "presently no aggrieved party." David Schwartz, the association's president, said the petition would be refiled with the court after the regulations take effect. "It's only a matter of time before this issue comes before the court," he added. Sweeping changes in the workers'...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Announcing a slight drop in an advisory rate, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi urged California insurers Wednesday to make more cuts in the rates they charge businesses for workers' compensation coverage. He announced a 2.2 percent drop in his pure premium advisory rate for policies that are issued or renewed starting Jan. 1, saying cost-cutting steps adopted by lawmakers over the last two years had overcome pressures for price increases. The Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, an industry association, had recommended a 3.5 percent hike in the advisory rate. "While there clearly were upward pressures on the cost...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Despite legislation approved in April that overhauled the state's workers' compensation system, injured workers still face lengthy delays in getting treatment and resolving insurance claims. The main reason is that the new legislation took effect before critical rules and guidelines could be developed to accompany it, according to The Sacramento Bee. Officials say the new rules will not be ready before Jan. 1. Among other things, the new guidelines will establish a pool of doctors that companies can use to evaluate injuries and dictate care. A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played a key role in...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Jesse Ceniceros was at the top of his profession as a mechanic for Lockheed when he was injured on the job and fell into California's workers' compensation maze. Now, out of work, hobbled by pain and in need of hip replacements, he may lose tens of thousands of dollars in benefits because of a key part of the sweeping changes in the 91-year-old system that were pushed through the Legislature earlier this year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Other workers who suffer serious work-related injuries could face the same problem if courts decide the new law requires doctors...

The system of compensating workers for job-related injuries and illnesses that California created nearly a century ago was a double-barreled benefit for employers. A no-fault system would protect employers from lawsuits that injured workers otherwise might file, and a quasi-public State Compensation Insurance Fund would be an insurer of last resort and thus protect employers from arbitrary rate increases by private insurance firms. What we have now, however, is not your grandfather's workers' compensation system. It's become very litigious and very political, and the State Fund is the insurer of first resort, writing more than half of all coverage. When...

For the first time in years, workers' compensation insurance rates are heading south - declining an average 13.8 percent in the past six months. But the reductions, fueled by two major overhauls of the beleaguered state-run program, fall short of earlier forecasts, including a 25 percent to 30 percent decrease predicted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in April. The quasi-public State Compensation Insurance Fund, the state's largest carrier with more than 50 percent of the market, has cut premiums an average 9.7 percent in 2004. It's a decision that has disappointed Democratic lawmakers and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi. Everest National Insurance...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - In a major disappointment to small business owners, lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - the state's dominant workers' compensation insurer said Friday their rates will drop only 7 percent next year. That's far below the 25-to-30 percent that many hoped reform legislation would bring. Vince Sollitto, a spokesman for the governor, said the administration is not looking at the news as a setback. He pointed out that major elements of the reform bill have yet to be enacted and that Schwarzenegger's savings estimate was for the longer term. Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said last week that workers'...