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Labor and Public Employee Committee
March 4, 2010
Raised Bill 5282 for requiring the
Chairman of Workers
Compensation to report on the functioning of the system annually to the
Governor and legislative committee appears a bare minimum expectation
of the
position of Chairman. I am surprised
there is a need to even legislate this. I
applaud the intent of this legislation after the
sudden departure on
February 23, 2010 of Workers Compensation Chairman John Mastropietro
from the
Labor and Public Employee Hearing. The
Chairman departed from the room after the damaging testimony regarding
delays
in medical treatment to injured workers.
The insurance companies have been
denying treatments and
requiring authorizations for everything from physical therapy after a
surgery
to medications. Worse is they are
terminating reasonable and necessary treatment or medications without
due
process leaving the injured worker high and dry for months or even
years before
a resolution may be reached. We heard
testimony February 23, 2010 of an injured worker who had spend
thousands of
dollars and years on appeal to win the most basic of treatment.
I have
documentation
on my website of a woman that won her case and of the insurance company
frivolous
appeal. She committed suicide in the
interim. This wasn’t a Connecticut
case, not yet.
We heard testimony
here last week from
a former Workers
Compensation Commissioner Mr. Miles. He
reported on a 1998 Chairman directive pertaining to injured worker
medical
treatment that does not require pre-approval for every treatment under
a physicians’
care. Apparently this directive has not
been followed during the tenure of Chairman John Mastropietro.
There was a Workers
Compensation Commissioners meeting tomorrow March 5, 2010 where you
could have
gone to the source and asked about the 1998 medical treatment directive
but
unfortunately it has been canceled at the last minute.
It would be interesting to learn why
the system turned
around to require medical authorizations and pre-approval of every
treatment. This is certainly
burdensome
on the physicans and would take up more time attending hearings than
the
treatment. Maybe this is why we can’t
get doctors to treat us.
I have said it before and I will say
it again, this system
needs a big quality control check up. Now
there is proof beyond mine of corruption.
I think this committee should
authorize an investigation of
who did not get the medical treatment and what the effect on lives has
been.
Sincerely,
William Lawler
P.O. Box 3951
Manchester, CT 06045
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