With the Government Roll-out of the Affordable Care Act (AKA Obamacare), other areas of government oversight such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have been overshadowed and been largely pushed off of Page 1. A recent suggested change by OSHA is the reporting of Injury and Illnesses electronically rather than the Hard Copy OSHA logs that employers have used for decades. This proposed change is suggested to only apply to employers with at least 250 employees. At the very least this will help employers organize their OSHA reportable Injuries and have the ability to look at historical reports. This Electronic reporting is also going to enable employers to compare their results to other employers. For employers and business owners that would like to know more about this proposed law, please visit OSHA.gov. OHSA is taking comments on this proposed law through Feb 6, 2014.
These OSHA reports are not the same as Work Comp loss reports. Carrier loss reports would provide actual claim costs including, Paid, Reserved, and Total Incurred amount. The OSHA Log contains details around the type of Injury or Illness and details about the injured employee and job function etc. These two distinct reports to overlap in some ways, but are developed and used differently…..and of course the government requires the OSHA Log per statute.
Introducing Incident Track ™
Some Agents already provide a vehicle for employers to report injuries electronically. Kapnick indeed offers this service for clients and have been doing so for years. This proprietary reporting software created by a third party partner, takes employee information relating to injuries and converts it into required reporting OSHA Logs. So if perhaps you wanted to be ahead of the curve in this area, you would like to learn more about this reporting software, please open the below link to see a Introductory Video.
If you need more information on this topic please feel free to respond to this blog or reach out to myself or Kapnick directly. Has your agent discussed the pending OSHA requirement with you and subsequent reporting options?
Joe
