| Doctors
for Sale, a 1996 article by Portland's Willamette Week, details
what are known as IME's, Independent Medical Exams, and Insurance Medical
Evaluations. Although the report is from 1996, and the fees charged
for IME's have risen dramatically since, this article intelligently
and thoroughly details this "profitable" business whose
income comes from insurance companies and employers. |
AIG defrauds Oregon's injured workers and state government
On July 5, 2007, Oregon regulators imposed $5 million in fines against a group of nine companies under the American International Group umbrella for mishandling workers' compensation claims and failing to accurately report premium and claims data to the state. If AIG starts obeying the law - like everyday people are expected to - the insurance company will only pay $1 million of the fine to the state. |
Lawyer fends off flurry of new lawsuits
An attorney
working for Wausau Insurance Co. is accused of altering an illegally
recorded tape and attempting to get endorsement of a $51,000 check from Wausau
for attendant care that never took place in an attempt to give the impression that
a worker and his attorney were committing
workers' compensation fraud. |
Independent Medical Examiner Practices
for Ten Years without a Medical Degree [Link
1] [Link
2]
Mark Nepokroeff
practiced medicine in
Niagara County, New York without having completed medical
school. His diploma was a fake. However, New York gave him a medical license,
allowed him to
perform IME exams and to treat workers' compensation claimants.
The federal government had him doing disability eligibility
exams
for Social Security Disability and SSI. His punishment:
four months in
federal prison and $233,439 in restitution.
Nepokroeff's attitude toward the disabled was astonishing. He
has stated, "There is no such thing as a totally disabled person", "Most
people on workers' compensation just want a free vacation" and "Most people on
workers' compensation are fraudulent." His response to hearing that one of his workers'
compensation patients had jumped out of a top window of Erie County Medical
Center was to laugh and say, "Well his problems are over." |
Owners
face workers' comp charges in a fire that killed almost 100 people and injured
nearly 190
The Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island did not have workers'
compensation insurance for three
years prior to February 20, 2003 even though it's required by law. This
is the fourth-deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. |
Florida Firm Fined $54,000 For Workers'
Comp Violation
Herston Engineering Services Inc. failed to provide workers' compensation
insurance coverage for six workers employed at the time of the investigation. |
Volz resigns as state labor commissioner
Minnesota's Labor and Industry Commissioner
forced to resign for failure to provide workers' compensation insurance
to employees in her business. |
A
medical provider, Tenet Healthcare Corp., charges over triple the median
to treat injured workers
A California Senate committee will investigate whether overbilling has
occured by the nation's second-largest hospital chain. The state Assembly
also plans hearings on allegations of overbilling and fraud by other for-profit
hospital chains. |
Street
Corner, Incorporated
Along with a long list of other law violations, nearly two dozen states
are investigating whether Labor Ready has shortchanged taxpayers
by underpaying premiums to state insurance funds that compensate those injured at work. Payroll records show clear evidence
of repeated misclassification: One worker who was sent out on 126 construction
jobs in West Virginia was coded 99 times in the company computer system
as a "piano tuner/taxidermist." The cost savings: Construction
insurance runs $13.15 per $100 of payroll, while piano tuner/taxidermist
costs just $1.09. (Fined for prevailing wage violataions
in Oregon but not for misclassification) |
Coal
bosses devastate workers' comp pay
After years of cheating and obstruction by the West Virginia coal bosses,
a dozen major coal producers agreed to pay nearly $50 million in delinquent
workers' compensation premiums. The $50 million is a far cry from the
$406 million that coal companies owe to the Workers' Compensation Fund. |
Feist
Deposition in the Case of Lynn Thompson v. Provident
Read testimony
by a doctor who describes how he was ordered to attend evening "roundtable"
meetings. He states that it
soon became clear to him that the "roundtables" were where staff
and lawyers would think up excuses to terminate or limit claims being
paid. To read more about Unum/Provident, visit www.injuredworker.org/UNUM/index.htm. |
Pennsylvania
Department of Labor & Industry Employees Investigated
Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. says top officials are guilty of "dereliction
of duty" for allowing L&I employee to spend nearly $200,000 of
public money on inappropriate, unjustified and wasteful expenditures.
These included at least 1,000 personal cell phone calls to Montana, trips
to casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, four coat racks worth $1,300
and novelty clothing items. |
Felony
Charges Filed Against Washington Trucking Company Owners
Clark County prosecutors file charges against Larry J. and Phyllis Ann
Brossard, owners of Bandits Express trucking company, accusing them
of falsifying payroll records to avoid paying more than $82,000 in workers'
compensation premiums for their employees. |
Lawsuit
filed against the largest disability insurer in the U.S.
UnumProvident has a policy of summarily denying disability claims and
using its medical staff to back up the denial, according to the company's
former headquarter-based medical director. The doctor, Patrick F. McSharry,
also charges that nurses and non-medical employees made medical decisions
and that doctors had a quota of claims to review daily, "precluding
meaningful analysis." |
Fine
proposed against temp agency
Labor Ready, the nation's leading provider of temporary workers
for the light industrial and small business markets, is fined $49,500 by Oregon's BOLI for prevailing wage violations. Washington state labor
officials fine them $734,000 for misclassifying workers to avoid
paying workers' compensation premiums. Note: Oregon officials have
a pattern of negotiating down these penalties substancially. Click here to read more on misclassification fraud. |
Workers'
Compensation Victims?
A Fox Television investigative reporter in Florida reports on worker's
never-ending battles with insurance companies to get needed medical care.
Note: Although we believe a thorough investigation is warranted to uncover
insurer/employer fraud in Florida and elsewhere, we're thankful that investigator
Glenn Selig didn't ignore the plight of workers as so many other news
media have. |
Insurance
Companies to Pay More on Accident Claims Because of Class Action
Since a car, even with quality repairs, is never the same after an accident,
a precedent setting lawsuit now forces insurance companies to pay on the
diminished value of a car after an accident. |
