Kaua‘i doctors saw more than 1,600 new workers’-compensation claims last year, according to Dennis Seino, labor program field manager for the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. He said that, in addition to these new claims, the office deals
Kaua‘i doctors saw more than 1,600 new workers’-compensation claims last year, according to Dennis Seino, labor program field manager for the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. He said that, in addition to these new claims, the office deals with another 1,600 or so ongoing and open cases per month.
Seino said the number of claims had actually declined due to what he perceived as safer workplaces and workers better educated about safety issue.
Yet the future of who will handle workers’ compensation cases on Kaua‘i remains on hold.
“We are still talking about the workers’ compensation issue, and no final decision has been made,” said Lani Yukimura, Wilcox Health (Wilcox Memorial Hospital and Kauai Medical Clinic) public information officer, addressing a question posed about the organization’s rumored decision to quit accepting workers’ compensation cases as early as Monday, Aug. 1.
“Discussions with physicians and the state Department of Labor (and Industrial Relations) are ongoing, and like all healthcare providers, we continually reassess various programs such as workers’-comp,” she said.
“Wilcox’s position is a manifestation of the problems with the current workers’ compensation legislation,” said Randy Gingras, president of the Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce.
“The program is moving toward an out-of-control condition, and it requires reform and new legislation to head off future issues and problems that are becoming more pronounced as time goes on. The Kaua‘i Chamber continues to advocate for worker-compensation reform, and it sees current worker-compensation legislation as a significant impediment to small business,” he said.
James Hardway, special assistant to the director of the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, said his office has spoken with officials from Hawaii Pacific Health, the parent organization for Wilcox Health and for Straub Clinic & Hospital, which last year stopped taking workers’-compensation cases (involving employees injured while on the job), closing their occupational-health clinics in Honolulu.
Hardway said when one provider closes, another one will usually come to fill the void.
Business and labor interests vowed to work together next legislative session to reform Hawai‘i’s workers’ compensation system after members of the state Legislature essentially killed recently new workers’-compensation rules, according to a published report.
During the last session, members of the state Legislature passed a so-called “handcuff bill” that prevented Nelson Befitel, the director of the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, from imposing administrative rules that Befitel said would save Hawai‘i businesses $98 million a year by streamlining the system and getting treatment for injured workers much faster.
Hardway said the topic of workers’-comp had been a subject of discussion within members of the Hawaii Medical Association since 1995.
He said the amount of paperwork was a “hassle” for doctors, as were the low reimbursement rates from insurers.
Workers’-compensation fees, which are pegged to Medicare, have dropped 54 percent since 1995, when members of the state Legislature approved legislation to decrease the fee schedule, according to a published report.
While Wilcox Health officials have not yet made a public announcement, part of a letter electronically signed June 30 by a Wilcox Health orthopedist to a patient reads: “As a final note, this office will no longer be accepting worker’s-compensation as a form of insurance, so we will be unable to continue (this named patient’s) care. The two doctors on the island who participate in workers’-compensation insurance are Dr. Rick Goding at Kauai Veterans Medical Hospital (at the West Kauai Medical Clinic in Waimea), and Dr. Hayato Mori, who practices out of Kuakini Medical Center.”
- Andy Gross, business editor, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or agross@pulitzer.net.
