Significant progress has been made by the NJ Division of Workers’ Compensation (NJ-DWC) in carrying out the legislative mandate for the newly enacted emergent medical care motion practice. 

While workers’ compensation was envisioned as a summary and remedial social insurance program, the challenges facing the workers’ compensation system to deliver benefits as promised may be seriously burdened.

This seminar will provide practitioners with new strategies and techniques to handle workers' compensation cases in the changing economy.This fast-paced program features a panel of some of the most respected New Jersey Workers' Compensation Judges and attorneys, who will review and provide insight on the top issues and cases that have emerged during the past year.

Since 1998, NIOSH and Brush Wellman Inc., the largest US producer of beryllium and beryllium products, have collaborated on research focused on beryllium and its associated health effects. This research program comprises medical surveillance of current Brush Wellman workers, and studies of airborne and dermal beryllium exposure. 

  The spread of influenza A has now reached pandemic proportions. The focus has now been directed to creating a vaccine to halt the rapid community spread. The next challenge to workers’ compensation systems may be claims resulting from adverse reactions to employer sponsored vaccination programs.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has again reported higher death dates for Hispanic workers in the United States. Hispanic workers are one of the fastest growing segments in the US workforce and their death rate has been reported as consistently high.

An employee who is laid-off may also collect workers’ compensation benefits. Because the economy that is doing poorly that doesn’t necessarily mean that an injured ordisabled worker is excluded from other benefits.

 "Sufficient evidence is now available to show that asbestos also causes cancer of the larynx and of the ovary."

The problems of old age are now worrying are beginning to influence decision makers on what to do with two major delivery system in the United States. Both the Medicare system and the workers’ compensation medical delivery system are now ailing. The fiscal remedy maybe their marriage.
 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (USDHS) has emerged as the lead agency in directing a response to the potential swine flu pandemic. The agency is following a well defined plan published in 2005 to respond to the threat in an effort to secure the Nation's critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR).

The present economic downturn has been compared to the Great Depression of the 1930’s or the recession of the 1980’s. The factors that existed during ...

The new stimulus package, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA], fails to protect medical record privacy for injured workers. The new economic recovery package includes an appropriation of $19 Billion for the expansion of electronic health records [EHR] by funding intellectual technology. The legislation fails to include an essential prohibition on the dissemination and misuse of workers' compensation medical records.

Our modern electronic world has many benefits and conveniences, but the free flow of information also creates privacy concerns. In the realm of health care, privacy protections are needed to preserve patients’ dignity and prevent harms such as discrimination. But such protections can also have unintended consequences for health care, and the health research that is vital for making medical advances. More than 10 years ago Congress called for a set of federal standards, now known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule, to protect the privacy of personally identifiable health information while still allowing the flow of information needed to promote high-quality health care.

As the greatest economic bailout goes forward, the Federal and State governments are exploring new areas to raise revenue, including from workers’ compensation benefits. The multi-billion dollar national workers’ compensation system, insured by recently nationalized unstable insurance carriers, maybe be a source to fund the rapidly increasing national debt

Legislation was recently introduced in Congress to re-establish a National Commission on State Workers’ Compensation Laws [Commission]. This attempt to recreate the almost 4 decades ago effort to evaluate uniformity of benefits, was introduced by a sole legislator, Representative Joe Baca [CA-43] and lacks any co-sponsorship or a duplicate effort in the US Senate.

State workers’ compensation systems are beginning to suffer from the impact of the national economic downturn. Economically induced factors are compounding the underlying issues that previously generated a growing level of critical stagnation. The combination of this dynamic now threatens the very core of the workers' compensation system and endangers its extinction.

A licensed practical nurse who suffered from preexisting pulmonary disability was permitted to recover benefits against her employer when a co-employee sprayed perfume at work. The NJ Appellate Division ruled that a licensed practical nurse was allowed to seek benefits when exposed to an employee's perfume even though the injured worker came to the employment with severe pre-existing obstructive lung disease.

A complaint filed by an injured worker who sought Federal Court review of a NJ Workers’ Compensation Judge for alleged gross misconduct was dismissed. The Court held that it lacked the authority to review the matter.
 

Jon Gelman’s newly revised and updated treatise on Workers’ Compensation law has been published by West Group of Egan, MN. 

On January 1, 2009 we relocated to newer and more modern office space.