California legislators returned to Sacramento this week for the final weeks of the session with a hefty load of bills to work through. The measures of interest to the workers’ comp community include bills to enhance anti-fraud efforts, hold carriers accountable for correcting problems, and enact staffing industry reforms. Already off the table were controversial …
Highly touted reforms to speed up delivery of care to injured workers by exempting many treatments from utilization review during the first 30 days were only minimally effective, say independent researchers from RAND Corp in a new report. The reforms didn’t have a bigger impact because employers were generally providing these treatments without requiring the …
The author of a bill to create a registration system for temporary staffing agencies took amendments from the Senate Judiciary Committee that eliminate an attorney-fee provision, but opponents say the amendments don’t go far enough to earn their support. Staffing industry lobbyists say they could support a registration bill if the private right of action …
A Senate budget subcommittee on state labor issues challenged the Department of Industrial Relations’ approach to cutting vacant positions to comply with the 2025 Budget Act. Last year’s budget agreement sought to eliminate over 6,000 vacant positions across all branches of state government, but a joint legislative budget committee questioned 650 of the cuts – …
A legislative proposal to create a licensing system for temporary staffing agencies is moving forward, despite opposition, in line with the author’s promise to work with parties to draft a workable definition of the staffing operations covered by the bill. SB 1032 by Sen. Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-San Bernardino) cleared the Senate Labor, Public Employment …
The Division of Workers’ Compensation’s annual educational forum opened last week under the direction of a new leadership team at the Division and the Department of Industrial Relations. DIR Director Jennifer Osborn noted that she is still months away from her first anniversary in the position, and acting DWC Administrative Director Nicole Richardson has been …
Sen. Ben Allen (D-El Segundo) is carrying SB 1209 to give the Insurance Commissioner the authority to penalize carriers that do not correct identified violations within an agreed-upon timeframe. Senator Allen is currently the favorite to be the next elected insurance commissioner. His bill is designed to give the Commissioner greater authority to require carriers …
Senator Anna Caballero’s (D-Fresno) decision to drop a provision for an annual cost-of-living adjustment to workers’ comp permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits allowed her bill, SB 555, to advance out of Senate Appropriations and ultimately the Senate. Instead of an annual COLA adjustment, the bill is advancing with an unspecified increase in average weekly PPD …