OSHA Compliance Heightened by Feds
By Adam Cole, Account Manager, Schaumburg, IL
An important component of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, signed by President Obama, allocated $513 million to include enforcement and oversight of injury and illness recordkeeping to ensure complete and accurate recording and reporting by employers. Numerous studies have found reporting deficiencies by employers, including research at Michigan State University (2006) that employers' OSHA logs captured only 31 percent of illnesses and 33 percent of injuries that were reported in other databases.
To assist in your compliance, RSG has recently released an enhanced OSHA Module that provides data entry and revision capability so you can maintain accurate OSHA data required to generate the OSHA 300, 300A, and 301 reports. Data items include disability information, lost days/restricted days data, and all required data items.
By simply entering the begin and end dates of an employee's off work and/or restricted duty schedule, the OSHA Module will automatically calculate the lost or restricted duty days. All required data fields are displayed on a single panel for your review, with edit capability to populate data not recorded and/or the flexibility for you to change data that is not accurate. OSHA data is real time and automatically resident in the reporting database to produce the OSHA reports and any ad hoc reports you desire.
Implementing the OSHA Module
Once the OSHA Module is activated, you will see two new links at the top of the Claim Detail Form - WC panel. There will be an OSHA / Lost Time Summary link and a Work Status Segments link.
Entering and Editing OSHA Data
You can enter and edit Lost Time and Restricted days by clicking on the Work Status Segments link within a workers' compensation claim. The panel displays a list of available work segments and provides access to enter new segments and edit or view existing segments. Work Status, Begin and End dates, as well as Lost Days and Restricted Days are displayed on the panel.
Note: The values in the Lost Days and Restricted Days columns display the actual number of Lost/Restricted Days and are not subject to OSHA's 180-day cap. These numbers alone should not be used to determine the OSHA reportable days.
Updating Existing Work Segments
The View Work Status Segment panel allows you to add a new segment by clicking the Add OSHA Work Status Segments button or edit this segment by clicking the Edit OSHA Work Status Segments button. You can scroll through the existing work segments using the Prev and Next buttons and return to the list of segments by clicking the View List button.
Managing OSHA Summary Data
To view all of the OSHA data for a claim record, simply click on the OSHA / Lost Time Summary link. This panel shows all OSHA fields, with a summary of lost and restricted days calculated from the Work Status Segments you have already entered.
The panel contains Disability data, including an OSHA Recordable check box that allows you to override data provided by your TPA. Privacy, work, and shift related data as well as Physician and Heath Care data are available in this panel.
Generating OSHA Reports
Once the OSHA data is entered, you can generate the OSHA reports that reside as templates in Sigma EncoreSM's Report Library. Select the reporting period and location level for the report and use the template features to automatically schedule, burst, and distribute the report to your field operations.
Your RSG account manager can answer any questions you have about the OSHA Module and demonstrate how easy it is to begin using it.
|
