Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota has announced the arrests of 18 people on charges of grand larceny, insurance fraud and other crimes related to defrauding the State Workers’ Compensation System.

Those arrested by DA detectives’ include two teachers, a limousine company entrepreneur, a chiropractor and fourteen other Long Island residents. Some of the able-bodied adults arrested for fraud were arrested for working while collecting benefit checks, others knowingly presented false information on workers compensation application forms and 4 defendants face charges for receiving benefits while enjoying unreported sources of income.

Added together, the 18 defendants stole approximately $550,000 from the system.

The largest amount of money stolen from the fund went to a Shoreham chiropractor. Robert Kaplan, 54, received benefit checks because headaches, hypertension and back pain prevented him from earning a living as a chiropractor. Kaplan, of 7 Seaview Ledge in Shoreham, cashed $273,000 in policy benefits over a 21-month period from 1998 until 2000. A state audit discovered the chiropractor was also the sole owner of a corporation, RMK Management, that collected hundreds of thousand of dollars annually from therapists and other professional tenants leasing space in Kaplan’s "Patient Treatment Center" on Route 25A in Rocky Point. RMK Management Corporation generated over a half-million dollars per year in income for the defendant. Kaplan faces a charge of second-degree grand larceny, a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

* We received a phone call from Mr. Kaplan on November 3, 2004 requesting that we pull this article from our news website since reportedly, all charges against him were dropped.  We did not endeavor to verify his comments but in the spirit of full disclosure, have posted this notice.

Source: State of New York

New York State Insurance Superintendent Gregory V. Serio today rejected this years’ filing by the New York Compensation Insurance Rating Board (NYCIRB) for a workers’ compensation insurance overall rate increase of 11 percent. The Department has determined that the increase requested is not supported by the information submitted to the Department in the filing and at the public hearing held almost two weeks ago.

In the Opinion and Decision, the Department also rejected the methodologies utilized by NYCIRB and detailed failures to provide information requested by the Department. The Department has concluded that NYCIRB has failed to follow through on the letter and the spirit of the sweeping 1996 workers’ compensation reforms. NYCIRB has also failed to recognize the efforts by Governor Pataki, the New York State Legislature and the business community to control what were once outrageous workers’ compensation insurance costs for the millions of working New Yorkers who depend on the workers compensation system.

Therefore, the filing has been disapproved and the rates set for 2002-2003 will remain in place.

Source: State of New York

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is seeking comments on a proposed revision to its Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP) that would change the benchmark injury and illness rates used to determine whether VPP applicants and participants meet the rate requirements for the VPP Star Program. This change would also apply to the requirements for construction applicants' qualification for the Merit Program.

One way that OSHA determines the qualification of applicants and the continuing qualification of participants in the VPP Star Program, the most challenging participation category, is to compare their injury and illness rates to industry rates -- benchmarks -- published annually by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). For Star eligibility, rates must be below the benchmark BLS rates.

Currently, the benchmarks are two rates from the most recent year's BLS industry averages for nonfatal injuries and illnesses. The OSHA proposal would change those benchmarks to require that to qualify for the Star Program, applicants' and participants' rates must be below the two BLS industry rates for at least one of the three most recent years published. This change would also allow construction sites that do not meet Star rate requirements to be considered for the Merit Program if company-wide three-year rates are below the proposed benchmark rates.

Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration

WASHINGTON -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will announce in tomorrow's Federal Register a 45-day extension of the comment period on the agency's draft guidelines for preventing musculoskeletal disorders in the poultry processing industry.

OSHA has received several requests from interested members of the public asking for additional time to comment on the draft guidelines first published on June 4. Ergonomics for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders: Draft Guidelines for Poultry Processing is now available for comment until Sept. 18, 2003.

This is the third in a series of industry-specific guidelines for the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace. The guidelines are intended to provide practical solutions for reducing ergonomic-related injuries and illnesses in the poultry processing industry.

Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is adapting Global Positioning System or GPS technology—similar to that used by the military to maneuver troops through hostile terrain, and by motorists to plan travel routes—as a faster, more certain way to pinpoint locations at outdoor work sites where employees may be exposed to hazardous levels of dusts, gases, fumes, noise, and heat.

A prototype unit, about the size of a videocassette, was developed and successfully pilot-tested this year by NIOSH scientists. NIOSH is beginning procedures through its parent agency, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to commercialize the technology while simultaneously exploring further ways to apply it and to reduce the size of the device.

To find 'hot spots' where exposures are highest and potential occupational health risks are the greatest, industrial hygienists need to correlate employee locations and exposure measurements with great precision. The technology being developed by NIOSH promises a giant stride forward from traditional methods, which can be time-consuming and labor-intensive.

The NIOSH-developed technology creates a Local Positioning System that links GPS with other instrumentation. The prototype system works this way:

• From orbiting GPS satellites, the unit receives signals that track the movements of the person wearing the unit. The unit also incorporates an adjunct technology, Differential GPS, which boosts the precision of the tracking.
• Measurement devices are plugged into the unit so that data on position, exposures, time, and date are logged simultaneously. In the NIOSH field tests, the unit was plugged into a temperature sensor and a sound-level meter that measured heat and noise at a highway paving site. The ensemble was mounted on a belt for convenience.
• The data from the Local Positioning System are downloaded to a computer, which is programmed to integrate the information and to generate maps and graphs that show levels of exposure at specific work locations. The program also can filter the data specifically to show "hot spots."

NIOSH plans an additional study to test the operation of the system with a monitor designed to measure sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other gases that may pose an occupational hazard.

Source: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division (Oregon OSHA) has announced that new Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR) for safety and health in forest-related industries will become effective on December 1, 2003. The new rules, which were developed by a committee of industry representatives working in conjunction with Oregon OSHA, are designed to protect workers who engage in professions in Oregon's forests.

Three main changes in the new safety rules affect forest activity employers:

1. The elements of a basic safety and health management program are spelled out.
   Rules now address in clear language management commitment, supervisor responsibilities, accident investigation requirements, employee involvement, hazard identification, training, and annual evaluation of the safety and health management program.
2. The safety standard is process oriented.
   For improved understanding, rules were written based on the typical sequence of processes occurring in a forest-based occupation.
3. Protective structures for machine operators are addressed.
   The rules address design provisions for Tip-Over Protective Structures (TOPS) and fully enclosed cabs to protect equipment operators. Equipment manufactured after July 1, 2004 will be required to be fully enclosed to protect the equipment operator.

Source: State of Oregon