From Bob's Cluttered Desk

I would like to take a quick moment to welcome a new contributor to our Workers’ Comp Blogwire, Mr. Terry Bogyo. Terry is the Director of Corporate Planning and Development for WorkSafeBC. His current responsibilities include environmental scanning, strategic planning and inter-jurisdictional comparisons. He joined the organization in 1980 as a Vocational Rehabilitation Consultant. Over…

Although I would occasionally write an article or opinion piece for our website over the years, it was not until August of last year that I “officially” opened my own blog, “From Bob's Cluttered Desk”.  It is hard to believe that it has only been nine months. Over that short time I have poked fun…

A couple weeks back I wrote about “Breaking the cycle of entitlement” by asking the question, How can we be better? I received some backlash from injured workers who, quite frankly, misunderstood my point. I responded with a second article to clarify my position. What I was talking about in those two posts was simply…

Well, the birds must be chirping and the flowers blooming with color in the vast Peoples Republic of North Dakota, because it appears that a major news provider in that state has finally awakened from its long winter hibernation to acknowledge a potential WSI scandal that has been going on for months. While the main…

When I first read the recent post from my friend Joe Paduda entitled “Missouri’s Resident Idiot”, I just automatically assumed that he was lashing out at that state’s legislature inducting native son Rush Limbaugh to the honored “Hall of Famous Missourians”. After all, Limbaugh and his beliefs don’t really reside within Paduda’s wheelhouse, as it were.…

I read today about an award issued in March by the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission granting benefits to a state worker for a condition associated with “repetitive walking”, and it got me to thinking. The claim, from an employee of the Menard Correctional Center, a veritable claim factory in its own right, was awarded benefits…

Recently the managers of the Workers' Compensation Roundtable on LinkedIn asked the membership what kind of subgroups they would like to see added the group. We received excellent suggestions, and are pleased to announce that the first new subgroup from this discussion is now available. The Return to Work Roundtable is now up and running…

There are no shortages of conferences for workers' comp, and Lord knows I've been to a few. However, this week I am attending my first event designed for the self insured segment of our industry, the Workers' Compensation Executive Forum being put on by the Self Insured Institute of America. It is being held in…

I swore to myself that I had written enough this week. I have a real job, with real fake responsibilities. I was done with my blog – really. But then an item crosses my cluttered desk that is, for lack of a better phrase, right up my alley, and to sit on this over the…

This is just a quick test, to see if you have been paying attention. I am going to quickly review three separate workers' comp claims. Your job is to tell which received benefits, and which ones, if any, were denied: A woman in Australia, traveling on business, meets up with a male friend and takes…