Yep always on the wrong side of the fence and a day late, dollar short.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Charles Krugman
Sent: Monday, January 4, 2016 12:56 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Workers' Comp Industrial Complex: The Middlemen
Silencing Injured Workers
you might have a better shot of getting your bills paid if you tried to apply
through your state's crime victim compensation fund. and sorry you're just on
the wrong side of the fence to get those exotic dancers.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Ventura
Sent: Monday, January 4, 2016 3:08 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Workers' Comp Industrial Complex: The Middlemen
Silencing Injured Workers
Last year I was out of work for 3 weeks due to being assaulted on the job.
To this day I am still getting medical bills for which workmans comp has
refused to pay. So where is my exotic dancers and free apple watches?
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2016 9:31 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Workers' Comp Industrial Complex: The Middlemen
Silencing Injured Workers
Workers' Comp Industrial Complex: The Middlemen Silencing Injured Workers
Sunday, 03 January 2016 00:00 By Michael Grabell, ProPublica | Report
(Image: Disability trailing via Shutterstock)Las Vegas - A scantily clad
acrobat dangles from the ceiling, performing flips and splits as machines puff
smoke and neon lights bathe the dance floor in turquoise and magenta.
Dancers in lingerie gyrate on poles to the booming techno. Actors dressed as
aliens pose for selfies with partygoers. There's an open bar and waiters weave
through the crowd passing out chocolate truffles.
It's the closing night of the National Workers' Compensation and Disability
Conference & Expo.
The party at Light, a Cirque du Soleil-themed club at the Mandalay Bay Resort
and Casino, capped off the workers' comp industry's biggest annual networking
event. For three days in November, hundreds of vendors wooed insurers and
employers with lavish after-hours parties, giveaways of designer handbags,
photos with Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug, and free rides in orange Hummer
limousines.
A top manager for a major insurance company recalled standing amid the hoopla a
few years back when a company CEO turned to her and marveled: "All of this
because somebody got hurt at work."
Workers' comp is supposed to be simple. If you're injured on the job, your
employer pays your medical bills and part of your wages while you recover.
But over the past two decades, a cottage industry of middlemen has emerged,
which some have dubbed the "workers' comp industrial complex." Even private
equity firms have bought in, seeing profit opportunities in employers' and
insurers' quest to contain spending.
The middlemen offer an array of services, from managing claims to negotiating
medical bills, all promising to reduce costs - although critics say some
actually raise them, as well as the burden on those hurt on the job.
It's a world largely unknown to the injured workers that the firms ultimately
serve, and often to the employers who spent an estimated $89 billion on
workers' comp in 2013.
Over the past year, ProPublica and NPR have detailed how state after state has
reduced the benefits historically granted to injured workers. As a result, some
workers have been evicted from their homes, denied medical care and put in
humiliating situations.
While lawmakers have clamped down on payments to workers, doctors and lawyers,
little scrutiny has been given to these "cost containment" firms - even though
today they arguably have more influence on how injury benefits are handled than
insurers and employers.
Highlighting the bounty, there are now more than 150 workers' comp conferences
a year. There's one for the American Society of Workers Comp Professionals, one
for the Association of Workers' Compensation Professionals and one for the
Association of Workers' Compensation Claims Professionals. At least 26 have
golf tournaments.
At the national workers' comp and disability expo, vendors gave away Apple
watches, bottles of bourbon, and a Vespa scooter. There were free massages and
shoeshines, a superhero caricature artist, more than one mentalist, and a live
alligator named Spike.
Timeline: Annual Workers' Comp Conferences in 2015 With more than 150 workers'
comp conferences a year, there's a 50 percent chance that you could go to one
on any day of the year.
Over the past year, conference attendees have heard from Pete Rose, Arianna
Huffington, Ted Koppel, Herschel Walker and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.
Rarely have they heard from injured workers.
"Even though the injured worker is the center of the claim, they're very far
removed from what actually happens to them," said David DePaolo, editor of the
industry news site, WorkCompCentral. "It's very dehumanizing. Why aren't
injured workers part of the conferences? It's because they're a number."
Private Equity Buying Spree
Last year, workers' comp insurers in California spent 36 percent of premiums on
overhead - more than they spent on medical care. That's over twice what group
health plans can spend on administrative costs under the Affordable Care Act.
A glimpse of the Vegas expo shows why. There were companies that provide
networks of doctors and companies that review medical bills, firms that provide
expert medical opinions and firms that specialize in complex claims.
There were defense lawyers, data processing firms, rehab facilities,
surveillance companies, outside claims shops, occupational medicine clinics,
pain management services, translators, schedulers, headhunters and associations
promoting other conferences.
There were labs that test injured workers' urine for illegal drugs. There were
even labs that test urine to ensure workers are taking the prescribed drugs
instead of selling them.
In California, the amount of money that insurers spend on medical cost
containment programs has more than doubled from $197 million in 2005 to $471
million in 2014, according to the state workers' comp ratings bureau.
Seeing huge profit potential, private equity firms have gone on a buying spree.
Sedgwick, a company that processes claims for large employers, was acquired by
two private equity firms for $1.1 billion in 2010 and then sold to another for
$2.4 billion in 2014. One Call Care Management, known in the industry as a
medical "cost containment" firm, was bought for more than $2 billion in 2013,
and reportedly bid to buy another vendor, pharmacy benefit manager Helios, for
$2 billion this fall.
Some of the biggest firms - Sedgwick, Genex, Helios, CorVel, MedRisk and One
Call - are little known outside the workers' comp industry. But they have
become powerful players in determining the future of how injured workers are
treated.
The companies say they play a critical role in reducing excessive medical costs
and preventing inappropriate treatment. Southern California, for example, has
recently witnessed a series of scandals involving doctors and hospital
executives who've been accused of bribery, kickbacks and unnecessary surgeries
involving workers' comp patients.
Some firms advertise that they analyze data to find the best doctors and can
get injured workers in to see them faster than the general public. They say
their data tools help employers identify safety problems and manage long-term
claims before they spiral out of control.
Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, said the
companies have become necessary as medical care, and the regulations for
delivering it across 50 different state systems, have become increasingly
complex. The firms don't just reduce costs, he said, but also improve outcomes
by helping employees get back to work quicker.
"Cost containment is not a dirty phrase," Hartwig said. "If insurers were to
eliminate cost containment because it was costing too much, I can assure you we
would see a rapid escalation in fraud and abuse in the system. And we would
quickly see an explosion in claims costs."
Increasingly, though, decisions to deny care aren't being made by workers'
employers or insurers, but by these myriad claims administrators, managed care
companies and cost-containment firms. Some industry observers say the firms
have added a layer of cold bureaucracy to an already complicated system. CorVel
- a managed care and claims-handling firm whose stock price has nearly doubled
in the last three years - recently sent letters to the widows of two police
officers killed in the line of duty, wishing their husbands a "speedy recovery."
There's even a Facebook group for injured workers who say they've been
mistreated by Sedgwick.
"I don't think we have created the savings intended and I think we've made the
system a much more complex, difficult to navigate system," said Bob Wilson, who
runs the popular industry site, WorkersCompensation.com.
Wilson said he jokes that even though he's been in the industry for 15 years,
he still doesn't understand what some people do. "No wonder injured workers are
getting lost in the system."
Controversy in Cost Containment
As business has boomed, little effort has been made to find out whether the
companies are helping or hurting injured workers.
Ed Welch, former director of the Workers' Compensation Center at Michigan State
University, said managed care is necessary in workers' comp.
"You can look at the field of doctors and say this doctor is really good, he
does a lot of back surgeries, he's very effective, we can negotiate a price,"
Welch said. But employers and insurance companies can also use managed care to
limit benefits by finding the cheapest doctors or "doctors who will very rarely
agree that work caused the disability," he said.
One of the field's most controversial niches is firms that supply doctors to
provide second opinions for employers and insurers. This alone is a $4 billion
a year industry in the United States, according to one of the leading firms,
ExamWorks, whose stock price has tripled in the past four years. Treating
physicians say such hired experts are often retired doctors who make quick
decisions without fully understanding patients' medical histories.
A recruitment letter for one medical review firm, which a doctor provided to
ProPublica, promised an "additional revenue stream" and said that "once a
provider is in the rhythm of performing these reviews they should easily be
able to perform 4-5 an hour."
Many cost-containment firms negotiate prices with doctors and other medical
providers and then take a cut of the discount they provide to insurers.
Often, the insurers and claims administrators receive fees and commissions from
cost-containment firms for selling their services to employers, said Frank
Pennachio of Oceanus Partners, an insurance consulting firm.
Some cost-containment companies have found another way to profit, according to
several doctors, insurance consultants and other service providers who asked
not to be named because they must do business with these companies.
They said firms misrepresent the cost of services to insurers, pocketing not
only the percent of savings but also the difference between the inflated price
and the true charges.
"The presence of these companies is becoming so overwhelming that providers are
getting squeezed out," said Steve Cattolica, government relations director for
a doctors' organization, the California Society of Industrial Medicine and
Surgery. Some firms are "raising the costs of work comp health care without
delivering any value."
The Workers' Comp Expo
The 43-story Mandalay Bay casino stands like a shimmering gold cathedral,
towering over the Luxor pyramid and the Excalibur castle on the south end of
the Vegas Strip.
It was the perfect setting for this year's workers' comp and disability expo,
which featured panels on how to prevent claims from spiraling out of control,
what to do about medical marijuana and "Current Trends in Urine Drug Screening
- What the Research Shows."
Conferences like these are where insurer-driven ideas for legislative reforms
spread. And they're also where deals are made, which explains the attention
showered on those holding the purse strings.
One morning, those entering the expo were greeted by a latte bar, hosted by
ExamWorks, with baristas etching elaborate patterns in the milk, like the face
of a lion or Pacman eating a ghost. Convention-goers mingled at booths and
browsed the swag. Strug posed for pictures, drawing people to one firm's booth
while also raising money for charity. Some attendees lined up early to get
wristbands for the after-hours parties.
Prime Health Services, a cost-containment company, held its party at the Wynn
casino's Tryst nightclub with a live band playing in front of the club's
90-foot waterfall and cocktails containing fake ice cubes with the company's
logo.
Rising Medical Solutions, another cost-containment firm, hosted a Great Gatsby
theme party with guests dressed as flappers. Paradigm Outcomes, a catastrophic
case management firm, held its reception at the lounge inside the
Cosmopolitan's three-story crystal chandelier. And Michael Sullivan &
Associates, a defense law firm in California, held its party at the House of
Blues' Foundation Room, whose website say it features "high-class debauchery"
and "luxurious party rooms to suit any desire - no matter how wicked."
But none of them could compete with the closing-night blowout hosted by One
Call that featured the acrobat, go-go dancers and glowing aliens clad in
spandex.
"If I was an injured worker at home wondering how I would pay my bills, I would
be sick to see this," said one insurance company manager who asked not to be
named.
One Call, which is based in Jacksonville, Florida, said in a statement that
such events are typically sponsored by companies in the industry as "a cost of
doing business" and that it chose the Cirque du Soleil theme to keep with the
conference's Las Vegas location.
"The focus of One Call Care Management is to make sure that injured workers
receive the best care possible, quickly and efficiently," its statement said.
"Having opportunities for our colleagues to meet and connect is important for
workers' compensation and for any industry."
Not every conference is as elaborate as the national expo. Some focus on
providing continuing education credits for lawyers and claims adjusters.
Many states put on annual educational conferences to update stakeholders on new
trends and regulatory issues.
This year, there were conferences in 104 cities in 41 states - more places than
in the country song, "I've Been Everywhere." One hotel, the Beau Rivage Resort
& Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, hosted three workers' comp conferences in 2015.
There are so many conferences that there is even a website called
CompEvent.com, which serves as a kind of Ticketmaster for them.
At this year's Risk and Insurance Management Society conference in New Orleans,
MedRisk - a network of physical therapy and diagnostic imaging centers for
workers' comp - led a parade through the French Quarter, complete with Mardi
Gras performers and a brass band, to its reception at Latrobe's on Royal.
And not to be outdone, the 70th Annual Workers' Compensation Educational
Conference in Orlando featured a concert by rock 'n' roll legends Joan Jett &
the Blackhearts.
In a video posted on Twitter, attendees bopped their heads as they sang along
to her hit, "Bad Reputation."
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be
reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
MICHAEL GRABELL
Michael Grabell has been a reporter at ProPublica since 2008, producing stories
for USA Today, Salon, NPR, MSNBC.com and the CBS Evening News.
Before joining ProPublica, he was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News. He has
twice been a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
RELATED STORIES
Workers at Nation's Top Hospital Strike for Fair Wages By Jaisal Noor, The Real
News Network | Video Report "Workers Are Constantly on the Edge of the Knife"
By Amy B Dean, Truthout | Interview
Workers in Maine Buy Out Their Jobs, Set an Example for the Nation By Rob
Brown, Brian Van Slyke, Noemi Giszpenc, Truthout | Op-Ed
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Workers' Comp Industrial Complex: The Middlemen Silencing Injured Workers
Sunday, 03 January 2016 00:00 By Michael Grabell, ProPublica | Report . font
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valid.
. (Image: Disability trailing via Shutterstock)Las Vegas - A scantily clad
acrobat dangles from the ceiling, performing flips and splits as machines puff
smoke and neon lights bathe the dance floor in turquoise and magenta. Dancers
in lingerie gyrate on poles to the booming techno. Actors dressed as aliens
pose for selfies with partygoers. There's an open bar and waiters weave through
the crowd passing out chocolate truffles.
. It's the closing night of the National Workers' Compensation and Disability
Conference & Expo.
The party at Light, a Cirque du Soleil-themed club at the Mandalay Bay Resort
and Casino, capped off the workers' comp industry's biggest annual networking
event. For three days in November, hundreds of vendors wooed insurers and
employers with lavish after-hours parties, giveaways of designer handbags,
photos with Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug, and free rides in orange Hummer
limousines.
A top manager for a major insurance company recalled standing amid the hoopla a
few years back when a company CEO turned to her and marveled: "All of this
because somebody got hurt at work."
Workers' comp is supposed to be simple. If you're injured on the job, your
employer pays your medical bills and part of your wages while you recover.
But over the past two decades, a cottage industry of middlemen has emerged,
which some have dubbed the "workers' comp industrial complex." Even private
equity firms have bought in, seeing profit opportunities in employers' and
insurers' quest to contain spending.
The middlemen offer an array of services, from managing claims to negotiating
medical bills, all promising to reduce costs - although critics say some
actually raise them, as well as the burden on those hurt on the job.
It's a world largely unknown to the injured workers that the firms ultimately
serve, and often to the employers who spent an estimated $89 billion on
workers' comp in 2013.
Over the past year, ProPublica and NPR have detailed how state after state has
reduced the benefits historically granted to injured workers. As a result, some
workers have been evicted from their homes, denied medical care and put in
humiliating situations.
While lawmakers have clamped down on payments to workers, doctors and lawyers,
little scrutiny has been given to these "cost containment" firms - even though
today they arguably have more influence on how injury benefits are handled than
insurers and employers.
Highlighting the bounty, there are now more than 150 workers' comp conferences
a year. There's one for the American Society of Workers Comp Professionals, one
for the Association of Workers' Compensation Professionals and one for the
Association of Workers' Compensation Claims Professionals. At least 26 have
golf tournaments.
At the national workers' comp and disability expo, vendors gave away Apple
watches, bottles of bourbon, and a Vespa scooter. There were free massages and
shoeshines, a superhero caricature artist, more than one mentalist, and a live
alligator named Spike.
Timeline: Annual Workers' Comp Conferences in 2015 With more than 150 workers'
comp conferences a year, there's a 50 percent chance that you could go to one
on any day of the year.
Over the past year, conference attendees have heard from Pete Rose, Arianna
Huffington, Ted Koppel, Herschel Walker and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.
Rarely have they heard from injured workers.
"Even though the injured worker is the center of the claim, they're very far
removed from what actually happens to them," said David DePaolo, editor of the
industry news site, WorkCompCentral. "It's very dehumanizing. Why aren't
injured workers part of the conferences? It's because they're a number."
Private Equity Buying Spree
Last year, workers' comp insurers in California spent 36 percent of premiums on
overhead - more than they spent on medical care. That's over twice what group
health plans can spend on administrative costs under the Affordable Care Act.
A glimpse of the Vegas expo shows why. There were companies that provide
networks of doctors and companies that review medical bills, firms that provide
expert medical opinions and firms that specialize in complex claims.
There were defense lawyers, data processing firms, rehab facilities,
surveillance companies, outside claims shops, occupational medicine clinics,
pain management services, translators, schedulers, headhunters and associations
promoting other conferences.
There were labs that test injured workers' urine for illegal drugs. There were
even labs that test urine to ensure workers are taking the prescribed drugs
instead of selling them.
In California, the amount of money that insurers spend on medical cost
containment programs has more than doubled from $197 million in 2005 to $471
million in 2014, according to the state workers' comp ratings bureau.
Seeing huge profit potential, private equity firms have gone on a buying spree.
Sedgwick, a company that processes claims for large employers, was acquired by
two private equity firms for $1.1 billion in 2010 and then sold to another for
$2.4 billion in 2014. One Call Care Management, known in the industry as a
medical "cost containment" firm, was bought for more than $2 billion in 2013,
and reportedly bid to buy another vendor, pharmacy benefit manager Helios, for
$2 billion this fall.
Some of the biggest firms - Sedgwick, Genex, Helios, CorVel, MedRisk and One
Call - are little known outside the workers' comp industry. But they have
become powerful players in determining the future of how injured workers are
treated.
The companies say they play a critical role in reducing excessive medical costs
and preventing inappropriate treatment. Southern California, for example, has
recently witnessed a series of scandals involving doctors and hospital
executives who've been accused of bribery, kickbacks and unnecessary surgeries
involving workers' comp patients.
Some firms advertise that they analyze data to find the best doctors and can
get injured workers in to see them faster than the general public. They say
their data tools help employers identify safety problems and manage long-term
claims before they spiral out of control.
Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, said the
companies have become necessary as medical care, and the regulations for
delivering it across 50 different state systems, have become increasingly
complex. The firms don't just reduce costs, he said, but also improve outcomes
by helping employees get back to work quicker.
"Cost containment is not a dirty phrase," Hartwig said. "If insurers were to
eliminate cost containment because it was costing too much, I can assure you we
would see a rapid escalation in fraud and abuse in the system. And we would
quickly see an explosion in claims costs."
Increasingly, though, decisions to deny care aren't being made by workers'
employers or insurers, but by these myriad claims administrators, managed care
companies and cost-containment firms. Some industry observers say the firms
have added a layer of cold bureaucracy to an already complicated system. CorVel
- a managed care and claims-handling firm whose stock price has nearly doubled
in the last three years - recently sent letters to the widows of two police
officers killed in the line of duty, wishing their husbands a "speedy recovery."
There's even a Facebook group for injured workers who say they've been
mistreated by Sedgwick.
"I don't think we have created the savings intended and I think we've made the
system a much more complex, difficult to navigate system," said Bob Wilson, who
runs the popular industry site, WorkersCompensation.com.
Wilson said he jokes that even though he's been in the industry for 15 years,
he still doesn't understand what some people do. "No wonder injured workers are
getting lost in the system."
Controversy in Cost Containment
As business has boomed, little effort has been made to find out whether the
companies are helping or hurting injured workers.
Ed Welch, former director of the Workers' Compensation Center at Michigan State
University, said managed care is necessary in workers' comp.
"You can look at the field of doctors and say this doctor is really good, he
does a lot of back surgeries, he's very effective, we can negotiate a price,"
Welch said. But employers and insurance companies can also use managed care to
limit benefits by finding the cheapest doctors or "doctors who will very rarely
agree that work caused the disability," he said.
One of the field's most controversial niches is firms that supply doctors to
provide second opinions for employers and insurers. This alone is a $4 billion
a year industry in the United States, according to one of the leading firms,
ExamWorks, whose stock price has tripled in the past four years. Treating
physicians say such hired experts are often retired doctors who make quick
decisions without fully understanding patients' medical histories.
A recruitment letter for one medical review firm, which a doctor provided to
ProPublica, promised an "additional revenue stream" and said that "once a
provider is in the rhythm of performing these reviews they should easily be
able to perform 4-5 an hour."
Many cost-containment firms negotiate prices with doctors and other medical
providers and then take a cut of the discount they provide to insurers.
Often, the insurers and claims administrators receive fees and commissions from
cost-containment firms for selling their services to employers, said Frank
Pennachio of Oceanus Partners, an insurance consulting firm.
Some cost-containment companies have found another way to profit, according to
several doctors, insurance consultants and other service providers who asked
not to be named because they must do business with these companies.
They said firms misrepresent the cost of services to insurers, pocketing not
only the percent of savings but also the difference between the inflated price
and the true charges.
"The presence of these companies is becoming so overwhelming that providers are
getting squeezed out," said Steve Cattolica, government relations director for
a doctors' organization, the California Society of Industrial Medicine and
Surgery. Some firms are "raising the costs of work comp health care without
delivering any value."
The Workers' Comp Expo
The 43-story Mandalay Bay casino stands like a shimmering gold cathedral,
towering over the Luxor pyramid and the Excalibur castle on the south end of
the Vegas Strip.
It was the perfect setting for this year's workers' comp and disability expo,
which featured panels on how to prevent claims from spiraling out of control,
what to do about medical marijuana and "Current Trends in Urine Drug Screening
- What the Research Shows."
Conferences like these are where insurer-driven ideas for legislative reforms
spread. And they're also where deals are made, which explains the attention
showered on those holding the purse strings.
One morning, those entering the expo were greeted by a latte bar, hosted by
ExamWorks, with baristas etching elaborate patterns in the milk, like the face
of a lion or Pacman eating a ghost. Convention-goers mingled at booths and
browsed the swag. Strug posed for pictures, drawing people to one firm's booth
while also raising money for charity. Some attendees lined up early to get
wristbands for the after-hours parties.
Prime Health Services, a cost-containment company, held its party at the Wynn
casino's Tryst nightclub with a live band playing in front of the club's
90-foot waterfall and cocktails containing fake ice cubes with the company's
logo.
Rising Medical Solutions, another cost-containment firm, hosted a Great Gatsby
theme party with guests dressed as flappers. Paradigm Outcomes, a catastrophic
case management firm, held its reception at the lounge inside the
Cosmopolitan's three-story crystal chandelier. And Michael Sullivan &
Associates, a defense law firm in California, held its party at the House of
Blues' Foundation Room, whose website say it features "high-class debauchery"
and "luxurious party rooms to suit any desire - no matter how wicked."
But none of them could compete with the closing-night blowout hosted by One
Call that featured the acrobat, go-go dancers and glowing aliens clad in
spandex.
"If I was an injured worker at home wondering how I would pay my bills, I would
be sick to see this," said one insurance company manager who asked not to be
named.
One Call, which is based in Jacksonville, Florida, said in a statement that
such events are typically sponsored by companies in the industry as "a cost of
doing business" and that it chose the Cirque du Soleil theme to keep with the
conference's Las Vegas location.
"The focus of One Call Care Management is to make sure that injured workers
receive the best care possible, quickly and efficiently," its statement said.
"Having opportunities for our colleagues to meet and connect is important for
workers' compensation and for any industry."
Not every conference is as elaborate as the national expo. Some focus on
providing continuing education credits for lawyers and claims adjusters.
Many states put on annual educational conferences to update stakeholders on new
trends and regulatory issues.
This year, there were conferences in 104 cities in 41 states - more places than
in the country song, "I've Been Everywhere." One hotel, the Beau Rivage Resort
& Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, hosted three workers' comp conferences in 2015.
There are so many conferences that there is even a website called
CompEvent.com, which serves as a kind of Ticketmaster for them.
At this year's Risk and Insurance Management Society conference in New Orleans,
MedRisk - a network of physical therapy and diagnostic imaging centers for
workers' comp - led a parade through the French Quarter, complete with Mardi
Gras performers and a brass band, to its reception at Latrobe's on Royal.
And not to be outdone, the 70th Annual Workers' Compensation Educational
Conference in Orlando featured a concert by rock 'n' roll legends Joan Jett &
the Blackhearts.
In a video posted on Twitter, attendees bopped their heads as they sang along
to her hit, "Bad Reputation."
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be
reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Michael Grabell
Michael Grabell has been a reporter at ProPublica since 2008, producing stories
for USA Today, Salon, NPR, MSNBC.com and the CBS Evening News.
Before joining ProPublica, he was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News. He has
twice been a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
Related Stories
Workers at Nation's Top Hospital Strike for Fair Wages By Jaisal Noor, The Real
News Network | Video Report"Workers Are Constantly on the Edge of the Knife"
By Amy B Dean, Truthout | InterviewWorkers in Maine Buy Out Their Jobs, Set an
Example for the Nation By Rob Brown, Brian Van Slyke, Noemi Giszpenc, Truthout
| Op-Ed
Show Comments
