From Bob's Cluttered Desk

During the first day of the WCI Cybersecurity Forum yesterday, there was extensive discussion on the issue of “ransomware” and the threat it poses to just about any business today who relies on computer data. Ransomware is software that is maliciously installed on a computer or network, and in most cases locks your critical data by encrypting…

We wrote about it last week. Cybercrime and cybersecurity. Beyond the immediacy of COVID, it is the topic that will define risk management for the 2020’s, yet many in the workers’ compensation industry have failed to appreciate the risk to their own lives and business operations. We offered a Hot Seat webinar on the topic…

We received a very unique message on our home answering machine yesterday. A very polite sounding lady named Wanda W. (last name redacted) called. She was with MedRisk, a Managed Physical Medicine company. She wanted to know if we were still providing massage services and if we were also seeing workers’ compensation patients. Thank God…

Cybersecurity has been a rapidly rising topic of late, not just for the workers’ comp industry, but for the nation and every sector of our economy. Yet, it seems that for many people, cybersecurity and related technology threats are like a hot stove. We know it is hot. We’ve been told it is hot. Yet…

I have spent a lifetime as an observer of the silly, senseless, useless, stupid and inane. In recent years I have had the privilege and opportunity to write about much of it in this blog, which, I suppose by extension makes it silly, senseless, useless, stupid and inane. And the entire COVID experience has given…

My health insurance provider certainly seems to know what is best for me. Either that, or they are trying to kill me, and slowly torture me in the process. I can’t be sure. Yesterday two separate incidents made me wonder why I bother going to the doctor at all. First, a little background. I started…

Just a little over a year after a state audit critical of its spending on what was considered “insider benefits,” Kentucky Employers’ Mutual Insurance (KEMI) is once again in the news. This time, however, it is because the governing board is in part directly reversing actions it took last year in response to the audit. Specifically,…

Things have gone too far. We could endure the great toilet paper shortage of 2020. Then it was the coin shortage, sanitizer shortage and a variety of other deficiencies of supply all related to the ongoing COVID pandemic. Even injured workers are technically in shorter supply, with a dramatic drop in claims around the nation…

It is so difficult at times to tell the difference between idiocy and ignorance. The latter, of course, implies a lack of knowledge in a particular area, yet the ability to learn and improve. The former simply reflects poor actions or decision-making despite presumably having the information that should have prevented it. Idiocy can also…

Policy making is an art, or at the very least it is an action that requires thoughtfulness and insight. It was policymaking without those attributes, after all, that gave birth to the adage, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” American Ecologist Garrett Hardin once opined, “Every plausible policy must be…