Workers’ comp is lacking, unstable Bureau director aims to mend it

Ohio is one of only four states with a government-run
system.

COLUMBUS (AP) — The state’s $21 billion system for handling claims from injured workers and setting the premiums their employers pay is “pretty broken,” and it may take years of work before public trust is restored, the new director of Ohio’s insurance fund for injured workers said Wednesday.

The premiums employers pay are unstable and some workers face inappropriately long waiting periods after filing claims, said Marsha Ryan, administrator of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.

“Individuals view Ohio’s worker compensation system as being pretty broken,” Ryan told The Associated Press in an interview, saying she agreed with that perception.

Ryan said the side of the bureau that deals directly with workers did not receive the type of attention that fixed a scandal involving the bureau’s billions of dollars in investments.

“We have a big job to do to overcome the criticism that I’ve heard of the bureau — that lack of predictability, that lack of simplicity in the processes,” Ryan said.

Ryan said the bureau’s past practice of awarding discounts to employers when the agency’s investments were good did not allow for long-term planning to keep premiums stable.

Rate-setting process

With the help of the agency’s new board of directors, she wants politics taken out of that rate-setting process, she said.

“We are going to be very planful, not political about the system,” Ryan said. “With this very accomplished group of directors that we have coming in, we will be able to avoid the temptation to do things that simply satisfy a short-term need.”

One of Ryan’s first tasks is to review the agency’s practice of providing group discounts to employers who belong to various alliances, such as the Ohio Chamber of Commerce or National Federation of Independent Business. She said three separate reviews have found the practice has contributed to the volatility of rates.

Adjusting rates to spread the burden more evenly among employers in and out of such groups is likely to bring the base premium rate down, she said, though group participants with the deepest discounts may see rates go up.

Business groups said they were open to talk about rate-setting but some disagreed that the system is broken.

“Injured workers are being taken care of and we’re working to get them back to work as soon as possible,” said Ty Pine, legislative director for the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio. “Despite the problems the bureau has faced, we’re still doing a reasonable job at that.”

Public vs. private

Providing refunds to employers when investment returns are good is important in Ohio, whose public workers’ comp system constitutes a monopoly, said Tony Fiore, director of labor issues for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.

“Because it is a state system, it doesn’t need to keep an exorbitant amount of money above what is adequately needed to cover every claim out there today and in the future,” Fiore said.