The Flip Side of Nonsubscription

The proposed workers' compensation opt-out legislation in South Carolina and Tennessee, coupled with the recent challenge to the Oklahoma opt-out statute’s constitutionality, has spawned many recent articles, publications and commentaries regarding legislation allowing employers to “opt out” of state-governed workers’ compensation insurance programs and become “nonsubscribers.” Most of these articles have attacked the nonsubscriber option as pro-employer and anti-employee. Interestingly, however, when the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) last investigated the satisfaction levels of injured workers employed by nonsubscribing companies, those studies showed that employees of nonsubscribers were generally satisfied with their treatment post injury, making nonsubscription a win/win for both employer and employee. Indeed, there are lots of reasons why employees like working for nonsubscribers: 1. Nonsubscribers Provide Enhanced Safety. Nonsubscribing employers tend to provide safer workplaces overall. Why? Because their claim costs directly correlate to claim frequency and severity. Consequently, improved safety, with the resultant decline in claims and severe injuries, is in nonsubscribers’ best interest. In her recent comprehensive study of nonsubscription, Stanford Professor Alison Morantz observed this phenomenon. Morantz studied 15 large multistate firms, analyzing and comparing data relating to their nonsubscriber claims in Texas and their workers’ compensation claims in other states. She found “strong evidence” that nonsubscription creates a “real safety effect,” because “[n]onsubscribers are, at least in theory, internalizing all of the costs associated with workplace accidents (including tort liability), which should induce them to invest more in safety-enhancing technologies.” She based this conclusion on the “sizable and statistically significant decline” in the claim frequency of severe, traumatic injuries. See also: Even More Tips for Building a Workers Compensation Medical Provider "A" Team   Steve Weatherford, vice president of finance and human resources at Daryl Flood Relocation (a Mayflower Transit agent), explained how safety is an integral part of Daryl Flood’s nonsubscription program: “The key ingredients to a successful non-subscriber program are an effective safety program (prevention); employee acceptance of the benefit of early reporting (early treatment); a quality medical network (effective treatment); and a proactive light duty program (restoration to employment).” He explained that “[t]he investment in these ingredients results in higher employee satisfaction; lower frequency of injuries; lower costs per injury; and a quicker return-to-work rate.” Because of its focus on these key ingredients, and notwithstanding the physically demanding nature of the employees’ work, Daryl Flood has gone more than four years without an employee missing a day of work due to a work-related injury. 2. Nonsubscribers Provide Enhanced Access to Quality Medical Care. The Texas workers’ compensation system can actually impede an employee’s access to quality medical care. Texas workers’ compensation laws cap the amounts that doctors can charge when treating injured workers receiving workers’ compensation benefits. As a result, many prominent doctors refuse to treat patients under the workers’ compensation system. Nonsubscribing employers, on the other hand, have the freedom to negotiate fees with medical providers, and they take advantage of this opportunity to enlist the most highly regarded specialists in many fields. “We search for and use credentialed doctors and strive to use only board-certified specialists,” says Jim Dickinson, Kroger’s claim manager, who helped roll out Kroger’s nonsubscription program in 1992. “And since we are not bound by workers’ compensation protocols, we are able to help associates who are in pain by expediting the treatment and testing they need.” 3. Nonsubscribers Provide Enhanced Benefits. The vast majority of the employees covered by occupational injury benefit plans receive benefits that are more generous than their workers’ compensation counterpart. For example, many nonsubscriber benefit plans provide wage-replacement benefits on the first day of missed work. Employees whose injuries are processed through the Texas workers’ compensation system, on the other hand, do not begin receiving wage-replacement benefits until the eighth day away from the job. Additionally, nonsubscriber benefit plans typically pay 85% to 100% of lost wages with no weekly caps, whereas an injured worker employed by a subscriber to the Texas workers’ compensation system is only reimbursed 70% to 75% of lost wages, with caps based on the state’s average weekly wage. United Supermarkets, for example, pays 90% of the injured employee’s wages beginning the first day of missed work, and it does not set a ceiling for the maximum amount of a weekly paycheck. In addition, most nonsubscribers allow their injured workers to make their usual deductions from their paychecks, such as deductions for group-health insurance premiums—an option not available under workers’ compensation. See also: How Should Workers’ Compensation Evolve?   Statistically, these differences are significant, because most claims involve minor injuries with little missed work. Workers who suffer minor injuries and are out of work between one day and one week under the state compensation system receive no lost wages, whereas workers employed by nonsubscribers with benefit plans typically start receiving lost-income benefits immediately. Professor Morantz wrote about this benefit to workers in her article: “Some ubiquitous features of private plans—such as first-day coverage of lost earnings and wage replacement rates that are not capped by the [state’s] average weekly wage—are more favorable to injured workers than workers’ compensation.” 4. Both Nonsubscribing Employers and Their Employees Are Satisfied With Their Treatment Following On-the-Job Injuries. For these and other reasons, “injured workers employed by nonsubscribers are generally satisfied with their post-injury treatment.” Indeed, in 1997, the last time that TDI studied the satisfaction rates of nonsubscribers’ employees, the study “revealed that worker satisfaction with employer treatment, medical coverage and income benefits paid during recovery was relatively high.” Nonsubscribing employers’ satisfaction levels are likewise high.  In TDI’s 2014 study on nosubscription, the department found higher satisfaction rates for nonsubscribers – 67% overall – than for subscribers – 61% overall.  Historically, researchers have found the gap to be logical: “Differences in satisfaction levels observed between subscribers and nonsubscribers are not surprising since employers who have made a conscious decision to opt out of the WC system may feel a stronger sense of ownership over their alternative occupational benefits program than subscribers do about the statutorily based WC system. Thus, higher overall satisfaction levels, as well as a greater degree of satisfaction with specific aspects of their programs, can be reasonably expected from firms that choose to opt out of the system.” And while there will always be employees who are dissatisfied or mistreated under any system—whether employed by a subscriber or nonsubscriber to workers’ compensation—many employees sing the praises of nonsubscription. Paul Philley, for example, describes his favorable experience following a workplace injury at Kroger: “They got right on it, and the treatment was excellent,” he said in a telephone interview. Philley, a 36-year-old produce employee with Kroger, suffered a severe cut to his finger when a baler door slammed closed on it. In previous years, he suffered several hernias, which he also treated through Kroger’s nonsubscription plan. “I give Kroger 100 percent A’s,” he said. “They went by the book and took care of me each time.” He confirmed that he never had to pay a penny for his medical care out of his own pocket. 5. The Most Criticized Features of Nonsubscribers’ Plans Have Little Impact in Real Life. Four of the features of nonsubscriber plans that are most criticized have very little impact on workers as a whole: non-coverage of permanent partial disabilities, capped benefits, lack of chiropractic care and categorical exclusion of some diseases and non-traumatic injuries. Professor Morantz’s study concluded “that even in combination, these four plan features account for relatively little of the cost savings.” As Morantz explained, “The impact of these plan features on total savings looks much smaller than I expected.” These headline-grabbing provisions affect only a very small percentage of injured workers. 6. Nonsubscription Is a Win/Win for Employers and Employees. While many organizations and lobby groups representing workers’ compensation insurers and plaintiffs’ attorneys spout unsupported criticisms of nonsubscription, the only objectively researched and published data shows that nonsubscription works, both for employers and employees. The ability to opt-out was a key component of the Texas workers’ compensation system as it was initially crafted in 1913, and nonsubscribers’ treatment of their injured workers has only improved since then. See also: Five Workers’ Compensation Myths   Most employers—whether subscribers or not—genuinely care about their employees and want to treat them right. Nonsubscription is an alternative way for employers to provide for their employees, and a way to get them better care, faster, so they can return to work sooner. The truth is, nonsubscription works, and it’s a win/win for both employees and responsible nonsubscribing employers.