employers and providers committing fraud and not workers

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Posted by Crusader on February 11, 1999 at 19:12:47:

Worker's Compensation Fraud:
The Real Story

Prepared by the Labor Research Association, Greg Tarpinian, executive director


Executive Summary
Escalating workers' compensation insurance premiums in the late 1980s and early 1990s set off a series of unsubstantiated charges about widespread claimant fraud as a major cost driver in the workers' compensation system. A number of states passed anti-fraud legislation and began to pursue fraud cases and to collect information about fraud on a serious basis. These efforts have uncovered no evidence to support the charges of widespread claimant fraud and, in fact, have revealed that employer fraud is a far larger drain on the system. The misplaced focus on claimant fraud has created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation for injured workers with legitimate claims. It has also distracted policymakers, law enforcement officials and the public from the real fraud problem in workers' compensation: employer fraud.

Dramatic increases in workers' compensation premiums throughout the late 1980's and early 1990's fueled unsubstantiated charges that costs were high in part because workers abused the system, fraudulently collecting benefits for faked injuries or remaining on benefits far longer than their recovery required. The American Insurance Association estimated fraud losses at 10% of the cost of claims paid, or about $3 billion. The National Insurance Crime Bureau doubled the ALA's estimate to $6 billion, even though it was involved in only 99 fraud prosecutions in 1994 and 134 in 1995 nationwide. The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud adopted the AIA's estimate. One insurance company president put the cost of workers' compensation fraud at $30 billion a year. These huge numbers grabbed the attention of the public and policyholders. The presumption in the press and in the state houses was that fraud was rampant and that most workers' compensation fraud was claimant fraud.

Since that time, more than half of the states have passed legislation on workers' compensation fraud, with most of the laws directed primarily at claimants. Thirty-three states currently have active workers' compensation insurance fraud units, many of them geared to fighting claimant fraud. In every state, some claimant fraud has been discovered; publicity about these cases has created a deterrent for workers who might contemplate fraudulent claims. But it has also created an atmosphere that Frederick Hill, California analyst for Firemark Research of New Jersey, describes as the ``unwarranted and anecdotal vilification of the work force.''

In its extensive investigation of workers' compensation fraud, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat concluded that, ``The perception that workers are cashing in by faking or exaggerating injuries has created a climate of mistrust in which every person who is injured and files a claim can become the subject of suspicion by insurance adjusters, doctors and industry lawyers.'' Perhaps most importantly, the fixation on claimant fraud has distracted policymakers, enforcement agencies, and the public from growing evidence of the real problem: millions of dollars in employer and provider fraud.


Fixation on Claimant Fraud
Few experts believe that claimant fraud is a major cost driver in workers' compensation. But some estimates, including those adopted by California Governor Pete Wilson, suggest that fraud accounted for 25% of all employers' workers' compensation costs and 10% of the claims. In California, a wave of legislation in the late 1980s and early 1990s was fueled by allegations from employers that workers' compensation costs were too high and that fraud was rampant in the system. But between 1979 and 1991, insurance carriers in California reported only 532 cases of alleged fraud.

According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, ``Some insurance companies saw fraud as a way to explain why premiums were soaring, and politicians and the media jumped on the bandwagon.'' The Press Democrat found that, ``While some insurance companies claim one out of three workers lie about their injuries, or 33%, the actual number of fraud cases sent to prosecutors is less than 1 out of 100, or less than 1%.

In its estimates of fraud within its own state, Kentucky reversed California's estimate of fraud accounting for 10% of claims and 25% of costs, saying that ``as much as 25% of all workers' compensation claims involve some element of fraud, accounting for 10% of paid premium.'' Kentucky then calculated its own fraud losses as $60 million a year. It noted, however, that ``while the extent of the fraud cannot be quantified, there is no doubt that workers' compensation fraud is in the public eye. Reports of fraud . . . are proliferated by the media.''

High workers' compensation costs led to more anti-fraud efforts. The Arkansas legislature created the Workers' Compensation Fraud Investigation Unit in 1993, in response to then-escalating workers' compensation costs. In its first year of operation, the new Fraud Unit opened 116 investigations, leading to 10 claimant fraud prosecutions and five employer fraud prosecutions, and quickly discovered that the employer cases accounted for a large portion of the dollar value involved.

New York's massive 1996 workers' compensation legislation, including its fraud provisions, resulted a directly from employer claims that workers' compensation costs were out of control. New York State Controller H. Carl McCall announced flatly in October of 1997, ``Fraud is a factor in New York's compensation costs.'' A statement from his office made the link between rising costs and the presumption of widespread fraud, stating [[Page E2058]] that, ``In response to the high cost of workers' compensation, reforms aimed at fraud detection and prosecution were enacted in 1996.'' But according to the New York State Insurance Department's annual report on insurance fraud, workers' compensation fraud represented only 3% of all the fraud reports in the state in 1996, the year that the legislation was passed.

Of the more than $6 million in insurance fraud documented in the New York report, workers' compensation claimant cases accounted for less than 2%. The report cited cases of pharmacists, physicians, and medical clinics making a total of almost $3 million in fraudulent claims. Three cases of premium embezzlement totaled over half a million dollars. The report cited only five cases of claimant fraud totaling $107,300. Like other states that are pursuing workers' compensation fraud, New York is quickly discovering that the real drain on the system stems from employer and provider fraud.



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