I had the distinct pleasure of speaking Thursday morning as the Keynote presenter at the 17th Annual Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Educational Conference in Nashville. Tennessee is on the precipice of launching the most dramatic reforms to its workers compensation system seen in many years, and this sold out conference was largely focused on educating the more than 700 people in attendance on the major changes that are taking effect July 1, 2014.
I say largely focused, because while other presenters were drilling into the future of comp in that state with laser precision, I largely prattled about in my usual incoherent manner of meaningless babble. But to be fair, my session was at 8AM. I’m a victim.
Nevertheless, I left extremely impressed with the reforms, the conference and the people who are responsible for making it all come together. These reforms represent major change for the state, and the employees at the DWC and the Department of Labor and Workforce Development have had their work cut out for them. But if the precision management they brought to this conference is any indication, this should be a cakewalk.
I think we can look forward to seeing good things coming out of Tennessee in the next couple years.
In some ways, Tennessee reforms put it more in line with other states in the country, in that it creates a Court of Workers’ Compensation Claims composed of judges for the adjudication of claims. In addition, it separates, with the exception of administrative matters, the Division of Workers’ Compensation from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. It redefines “maximum total benefits” for injuries occurring on, or after July 1, 2014, and establishes an alternative dispute method for resolving claims with a workers’ compensation mediator.
It also establishes a medical payment committee and a medical advisory committee.
An emphasis of my conference presentation, “Breaking the Cycle of Entitlement; How Do We Get Better?” centered on communicating and helping recovering workers’ understand the system they are navigating. Tennessee is launching an Ombudsman program to assist these workers, and that should be a big improvement towards that effort.
Other changes (many of which are already in effect) to the Volunteer state:
- Authorization for the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to request and obtain information regarding employer workers’ compensation insurance policies in order to ensure compliance with the law
- A definition of “volunteer firefighters” to mean any member or personnel of a fire department, volunteer fire department, rescue squad or volunteer rescue squad, including, but not limited to, a junior member, a board member or an auxiliary member of the department or squad.
- Provisions to recognize extraterritorial workers' compensation coverage.
- Benefits for teachers who are victim of a violent crime.
- Penalties for employee misclassification.
- Exemptions provided for specific religious sects.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Nashville, and appreciate the opportunity extended by DWC Administrator Abbie Hudgens and Assistant Administrator Jeff Francis (Francis, by the way, should go into conference management if this whole workers' comp thing doesn't work out. He was pivotal to this well oiled machine). Hats off as well to Eric Oxfeld and Jeanne Bush of IWCF, who toiled behind the scenes to facilitate the event.
It appears that Tennessee is off to a great start on a very impressive reform effort. We wish them luck!