Memo
To: H&W Trustees
From: Kathy Black, Health & Safety Director
Date: May 4, 2001
Subject: Report on Quarterly Meeting with Risk Management,
4/19/2001
In Attendance: For Risk Management: Cheryl
Bravo, Diana Rivera, Susan Robinson,
Barry Scott For the Union: Judy Hoover, Mike Walsh, Jerry
Roseman, Kathy Black
Following is a summary of the issues discussed
regarding the IOD system.
Injury Report Form
Barry Scott shared with us the latest
working draft of the new reporting form
which
he has been working on for some months. Because he has
been so short-staffed,
he has not had much time to work on it and is not satisfied
with what he has
developed so far. He feels he has not been able to get
at the injury causation he
is aiming for. He is doing additional research to see how
other entities have
worded questions. He would like to design the questions
so that they will identify
hazards that have led to injuries and suggest possible
intervention measures.
When the form is completed, supervisors and managers will
be trained in its use
and identifying possible intervention strategies will be part of that training.
We went through the form in detail and
the union representatives made many
suggestions which Barry agreed were useful. Many of the
questions appeared
"value loaded" to us and we were concerned that members would feel
that the
object of the questions was to cast blame on them or coworkers
for accidents.
The sign-off piece for D.C. 47 members
to authorize a copy to go to our Health
and
Welfare Fund is included.
It appears that this form is still many
months from completion, much less imple-
mentation. It is likely we will be reviewing another draft
at the next meeting. In the
meantime, CompServices, Inc. will continue to send me monthly
listings of our
members who have filed injury reports.
Notice to Employees regarding
Responsibilities Under IOD System
At our last quarterly meeting, we were
told there was no time for additional
revisions to this notice because it was being distributed
to all employees within
the next week or two. However, the notice has yet to be
released, and we spent
considerable time reviewing it again. It appeared that
the suggestions we had
made previously were not incorporated in the notice. We
had asked for the form to
include rights as well as responsibilities under the IOD
system, and to incorporate
information about compensation levels and benefits of the
system for workers.
Management’s response was that the Police
Department was adamant that the
form only include responsibilities, and that it be as hard-nosed
as possible. Since
so many injuries occur among the uniformed employees, Risk
Management is
apparently capitulating to this view.
Still, we went through the form, made
some suggestions, and pointed out what
we
believe is a glaring factual error. One point on the form
asserts that employees
may only be carried as IOD in no-duty status when a physician
from the City’s
provider network has determined no-duty status is warranted.
Judy Hoover pointed
out that Civil Service Rules actually give this decision
to the Appointing Authority
of each Department. In my caseload, the doctor’s opinion
that someone is capable
of working has been overturned by the department on numerous
occasions. This is
usually because the doctors are not interested in what
the workers’ duties, and
they also take the position that ability to get to and
from the job should not figure
in their decision.
The Risk Management folks agreed to
check into this, although they said the
form
had already been reviewed for accuracy. In fact, copies
have already been printed
and were poised for distribution. (Since the meeting, I
spoke with Susan Robinson.
She said the purpose of this language was to assure employees
that management
could not force an employee to come to work if they had
been determined to be in
no-duty status by a network physician. The language does
not make this clear,
however, and she agreed to check into it once again.)
Complaints about Doctors
I raised this issue because I continue
to hear complaints about treatment by
physicians in the network but I still have a great deal
of trouble getting employees
to write up their complaints, although they always say
they are willing and promise
to do so. In the past, Dr. Korevaar has said only direct
complaints from employees,
about personal demeanor and/or medical treatment, were
useful to them in dealing
with doctors. At the meeting, Risk Management staff agreed
to accept my written
summaries of complaints heard from members, if they include
specific reference
information that they can check - i.e., employee’s name,
dates of service, etc. I
will still press our members to write the complaints in
their own words as they will
obviously have more power, but I will fill in when necessary.
Health & Welfare Trustees -3- May
4, 2001
Also, the RM staff reported that they
have begun visiting doctors in the system
in
order to develop a working relationship with them and to
hold them accountable to
the Risk Management office and not just CompServices, Inc.
Prudence Rembert and
Dr. Wilma Korevaar are involved in this project.
I reported that I sometimes go to doctor
appointments with employees as a
patient advocate, especially when they have had problems
with their case. For the
most part, the doctors have no problem with this. However,
on a couple of
occasions doctors have objected to my presence (Drs. Cautilli
and Foster). The RM
staff was very clear that employees have every right to
take whomever they wish
with them to the doctor. They said they would be mentioning
this to doctors on
their site visits.
Light Duty
We began a discussion of this broad
topic, all of us agreeing that it is
a big issue
and that any attempt to develop guidelines or policies
would be a very large and
long term project. There was also agreement that work-related
and non-work
requests for light duty should be handled in the same manner.
We gave examples
of how differently departments approach this topic - i.e.,
how some are willing to
be accommodating and others are rigid. I gave a recent
Social Worker’s situation
as a case in point to illustrate the need for a flexible,
responsive policy in DHS.
The RM staff agreed to take on this
issue and to begin by discussing it at
a
quarterly safety officers’ meeting which is being instituted.
They expected to raise
this and the other issues we discussed at the meeting with
safety officers within
the next couple of weeks.
This portion of the meeting was then
adjourned and Kendall Banks and Francine
Locke, Industrial Hygienists who work with Barry Scott,
joined us for a discussion
of outstanding health and safety projects. See my regular
monthly report for an
update on those projects.
