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Executive Director's Corner: A Safer Community Together
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Clairmonte Cappelle, Executive Director
The past several weeks has been a difficult time for all of us as we continue to manage our routines of social distancing and stay-at-home orders with varying degrees of success. While these safeguards may cause discomfort, they are also necessary to help contain COVID-19. This pandemic has magnified the importance of health and safety in our society, from our homes to our workplaces, including our schools. There is an expectation of safety in our workplaces, our schools, and elsewhere that has been made uncertain during this unprecedented time we’re experiencing. Nonetheless, each one of us can do our part to ensure that safety takes precedence within the environments we live and function.
At the PSWCT/UP, we too are social distancing, postponing or canceling nonessential events, restricting in-person meetings, and relying on increased use of teleconferencing tools. Though we are enabled to change the way we provide claims and risk management solutions to our school districts, we still continue to care for injured workers, we remain a resource to school districts on the impact of COVID-19 on workers’ compensation, and we continue to manage the hundreds of unemployment claims as a result of school closures. In a nutshell, we are fulfilling our mission.
To keep up to date on the latest COVID-19 information and its impact on our services and the workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance industries, please visit our
COVID-19 landing page
.
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What You Need to Know This Month
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Injury Nurse Triage Program
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Here at the Puget Sound Workers’ Compensation Trust and Unemployment Pool, our mission is to reduce risk, minimize cost, and maximize outcomes for Educational Communities by delivering culturally responsive claims and risk management solutions.
We have partnered with Medcor, a national workers compensation medical management company, to pilot WCT Nurse, our new Workers’ Compensation Injury Triage Program. This service provides pre-claim injury assessment and allows school district employees to have 24/7 access to nurses by phone in the event of an “on-the-job” injury. This approach utilizes patented triage methods that determine the level of care most appropriate for the reported injury. If a referral to a doctor is needed, the nurse will make the appropriate recommendations. The primary benefit to our members is in the delivery of appropriate care for the injured worker.
This
three-minute video describes the service and the benefit of an injury triage service. More information about nurse triage programs may be found in this
article.
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Updates on Reasonable Assurance
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As mentioned in our April 2019 edition of
Sound Advice
, there were changes to reasonable assurance that impacted the 2019-2020 school year. Below is a truncated recitation of what was noted in the aforementioned edition, including our suggested language for reasonable assurance letters at the time considering the murky guidelines promulgated by the Employment Security Department (ESD).
We are pleased to report back that in every instance where our suggested language was used, both ESD and The Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) found that the District had complied with the new requirements.
We now face a new uncertainty with the impact of the coronavirus/COVID-19 on reasonable assurance. As of right now, the Unemployment Pool is advising its member districts to proceed as usual with the reasonable assurance letters for the 2020-2021 school year. The big unknown at this time is whether the 2019-2020 reasonable assurance letters that cover the summer 2020 break will end
COVID-19
related unemployment benefits already granted come summer.
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School Districts Leverage Financial Incentives
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As PSESD strives to ensure success for each child by eliminating opportunity gaps, here at the Trust, we also strive to ensure injured worker return-to-work success by removing barriers to that success.
PSWCT’s Return-to-Work Incentive Program (RTWIP) equips our Trust Members with deeper knowledge of gap-closing return-to-work best practices and provides opportunities for school districts to share with each other how they apply these practices.
It has been exciting to see the RTWIP grow from 8 participants to the current 13 over this last year. For the first 6 months of the program, the Trust paid out $
144,687.24, leaving $791,727.76 of allocations to roll into this school year. In November, you received your district’s allocations and in the coming week, you will receive your balances and the possible claims that may be eligible for reimbursement. To date, we’ve only paid out $7,891 in reimbursement allocations.
The Trust has over $1.7 million dollars that we would like to reimburse back to participating program members and new participants!
The Return-to-Work Incentive Program will be here next year, so
it is not too late to join.
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Welcome Aboard! Meet our Newest Staff Member, Jamico Daniels!
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Arriving February 19, 2020, Jamico is the first new hire of the decade to the Trust and Unemployment Pool.
Jamico comes to us with experience in both workers’ compensation and auto claims. Most recently he was with Sedgwick, handling Workers’ Comp claims for employers such as the Bellevue School District, Macy’s, and Century Link.
In addition to an aim to exceed expectations, build rapport with people, and learn new things, Jamico brings artistic talent to our team. He is a media artist (drawing, digital painting, 3D modeling, and animation) and Anime enthusiast with musical tastes ranging from Dean to Periphery!
We’re excited by how Jamico will add to our team’s customer service focus and know you will enjoy getting to know him as well.
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School Districts Tap Job Placement Testing Program to Strengthen Hiring Practices
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In February 2020, the Trust began offering a program that focuses on reducing the likelihood of workplace injuries. The Job Placement Testing Program involves physical capacity testing that school districts can use during the hiring process to identify whether the selected candidate can safely perform the essential physical functions of the offered position, with or without accommodations. This approach reasonably assures the safety of the selected candidate in job performance, prevents workplace injuries, and can reduce workers’ compensation costs.
Some of our districts had already established job placement testing programs, however, there were varying degrees of challenges such as access to providers, testing costs, and time management for program coordination. The Trust saw the Job Placement Testing Program as a value-added opportunity and determined that sponsoring the program would offer another no-cost benefit to our members by enhancing existing programs, remove the cited challenges, and to simplify the process along the way.
Through a partnership with Concentra Occupational Health, a national provider of workplace health solutions, the Trust utilized an existing repository of job analyses which was then integrated with testing practices from existing district programs to establish job testing protocols for high injury classifications.
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Cleaning During School Closures
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With our schools closed through the end of the 2019-20 school year,
many are planning to embark upon programs to deep clean classrooms.
As the COVID-19 situation evolves, we are presented with some great challenges that require us to be flexible.
New guidance from the State Department of Health and the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department advises that our now empty classrooms do not need to be cleaned and disinfected repeatedly while closed. This is one way we can limit the cleaner and disinfectant exposure of the custodians and potentially prevent problems and associated claims. Now is also a good time to review cleaning and disinfection practices and procedures and to provide training to custodians.
The portion of Tacoma Pierce County Health Department's (TPCHD) FAQ below specifically addresses the above issue:
“Do custodial staff need to continue cleaning and disinfecting schools now that they are closed?
No. Schools should clean during closures like they would for an extended spring break. Staff do not need to clean and disinfect an empty building. Schools should save cleaning supplies for when they are needed. “
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A foundational piece of our school Indoor Air Quality work is through the EPAs “Tools for Schools” resource. We urge you to
subscribe
to receive direct from the source pertinent information about ongoing issues plus links to
relevant training opportunities
.
We recommend you to follow information and guidance provided by reliable, data driven agency sources aimed at schools:
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COVID-19 Resources for Janitorial Workers & Employers
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Janitorial staff can take steps to protect themselves while cleaning and disinfecting surfaces.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is a tool to create separation between yourself, the contaminated surface, and the cleaning agents. When using chemical cleaning agents, protect your respiratory system by increasing the air flow to the area. Cleaning and Disinfecting serve different purposes and should be used together.
CLICK HERE for detailed guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on cleaning and disinfecting technique.
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Creating Safety Committee Reports
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Discussing with your team members recent workplace injuries, and how to prevent them, is an important role of the Safety Committee. Origami Risk has made creating a report that you can share with your team easy.
Click
here
for detailed instructions for creating Safety Committee reports from Origami Risk into downloadable pdfs to discuss at your next meeting.
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Meet your Industrial Hygiene Consultant: Elizabeth Jakab
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Where were you born?
Born as a Hungarian minority in Transylvania, currently Romania, in a beautiful small town near the
Carpathian Mountains.
Education Background
Master’s in Science, with Chemistry major. Her education and specialty in the U.S. are in Hazardous Chemicals and Hazardous Waste Management. In Romania she worked for a few years as a high school science teacher and analytical laboratory chemist.
What brought you to Seattle?
During her youth, Romania was one of the most oppressive Eastern European countries under the rule of the infamous dictator,
Ceausescu. There was strict control, discrimination against minorities and certain social groups, great survival difficulties, and no reasonable future.
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