From Bob's Cluttered Desk

If you have been preparing to make the trek to the industry annual national workers' comp sojourn in Las Vegas, it has likely been a fairly hectic time. You no doubt have been inundated with event invitations, “Visit us in Booth XXXX” postcards, and emails from people who would love to meet with you in…

In many ways, the feeling was reminiscent of a scene from the classic Steve Martin movie, “The Jerk”; a moment when his character, Navin R. Johnson, realizes the new phone books have arrived. He gallops around the service station in front of his boss, excitedly shouting “The new phone books here, the new phone books…

A few weeks back I wrote about the most recent Opt Out news, a ProPublica/NPR article looking at the Federal Governments potential interference in workers' comp with Opt Out being a final ingredient in the interventional stew. In that article I had a bit of fun with a public relations firm hired by ARAWC, the…

As many of us are preparing for next week's big workers' comp soiree, the National Workers' Compensation and Disability Conference, we find it challenging to determine which after hours events we should attend. Wednesday night might have been a particular challenge for me, as several big events are planned that evening in conjunction with the…

Kids’ Chance of Maryland launched Kids’ Chance Awareness Week Monday in grand style, appearing on a local Baltimore CBS affiliate and singing modified lyrics to the song “Manic Monday”. Kids’ Chance is pushing awareness of their cause the entire week, and this was probably the most visible effort to date in the project. Kids’ Chance…

I spoke at the Idaho Industrial Commission Workers' Compensation Seminar in Boise, ID last Thursday, on the topic of what our industry may look like in the year 2020 and beyond. It was a very future oriented conference, with the morning Keynote Tom Lynch going into extensive detail about Artificial Intelligence and the future of…

An article in NPR yesterday reports that “Ten ranking Democrats on key Senate and House committees are urging the Labor Department to respond to a ‘pattern of detrimental changes in state workers’ compensation laws' that have reduced protections and benefits for injured workers over the past decade.” The letter, addressed to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez,…

I get tired of talking about “can't”, and the workers' compensation system sometimes seems hell bent on it. We can't simplify the claims system. We can't humanize the process. We can't convince people that getting back to work is best for them. And we can't convince employers they need their injured back.  We can't seem…

ProPublica, the news organization that last spring electrified the workers' compensation industry with a series of scathing reports, has turned its sights on the world of Opt Out, and is reporting that, for employees subject to that system, things are not as Disneyesque as promoters would have us believe. The highly detailed report was published…

I’ve written previously about hosting the Sertoma Sarasota Celebrity Roast. It is an annual fundraiser I run for the benefit of children with speech and hearing issues. This year, for those of you on the Florida Gulf Coast, we will be roasting local legend Les McCurdy, of McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre. In addition. we will be…