Alec Caldwell
More slash and burn tactics against claimants from the WSIB
By Alec Caldwell
WSIB continue their slash and burn tactics on claimants. In my last weeks article” The sorry tale of yet another legitimate WSIB claimant denied benefits I told the story of one such claimant I happen to meet.
WSIB’s top bureaucrat, David Marshall, earns $400,000 annually and recently pocketed a $400,000 bonus. He’s just been appointed to a new, two-year term. So I’m assuming there’s no lack of funds around the Marshall household. But construction workers denied legitimate claims will starve and they are the ones who have been paying all those Sunshine List $100,000-plus salaries at the WSIB. The WSIB is out-of-sync with its customers (its insured workers) and totally in-sync with its own internal needs. In the free market, this would spell the end of a corporation. In the public sector, it simply means that taxes and fees are going up.
Today we have claimants paying a high price and suffering for this organization’s bad past fiscal management and yet our existing government does not care about the workers. They only care about the WSIB’s optics politically, which is why they have decided to decrease WSIB’s unfunded liability by law.
There seems to be a ground swell of unrest around WSIB’s handling of claims, including their smoke and mirror approach on how safety has improved within the industry whereas, in actual fact, the real truth couldn’t be more different. Queen’s Park reporter Richard J. Brennan, in the Toronto Star, puts it this way:
“Injured workers sincerely wish they had reason to praise the WSIB CEO and President for leadership of a fair compensation system. However… Marshall’s claims to have snatched the Board back from the “brink of financial ruin” while improving worker outcomes and safety are challenged by the Board’s own statistics showing workplace fatalities have increased by 43% from 2009 to 2013″
“IWC Executive Director John McKinnon is still waiting for data on claims denials to be made available through an Access to Information request, data no longer published by the Board that may show just how the WSIB is cutting its expenses. Already, it is known that entitlement for workers with permanent impairment has gone down by 37% since 2012 and the amount paid out in benefits has dropped by 22% over the period 2009 to 2013”
Meanwhile, the Hamilton Spectator writes:
“The WSIB, under the direction of David Marshall, is not a fair system to injured workers. The WSIB “tailors” to employers and refuses to compensate Ontario workers hurt on the job. The employers who pay into the WSIB via assessment rates are rewarded with large annual rebates, while injured workers are denied basic health care and income-replacement benefits”
WSIB is 100% out to deny claims any way they can and use items like pre-existing conditions on claimants or their roster of WSIB-friendly physicians. Anyone not working at arm’s length from an organization has to be biased, based on my logic.
Self employed contractors and renovators who were forced (mandated) in to WSIB under Bill 119, may not receive fair adjudication on any claim they might file. This makes a bad situation even worse, paying for something you might not receive, based on David Marshall’s cost cutting practices to reduce debt, regardless of the suffering to many legitimate claimants.
One denied claimant wrote in a recent post: “My life is only worth a bullet that I can’t afford to buy.” Another wrote: “They asked their doctor who had never met me to review my file. He decided that my broken back was just a strain so my entire claim was cancelled.”
These are real people’s comments and where is the fairness, WSIB?
More needs to be done so that WSIB can’t keep getting away with their current practices, denying claims of the very people who are paying for all of their salaries, including David Marshall.
What are your thoughts? We need to share and spread the word!
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Can I post this to my blog?
Yes
Sneaky WSIB!
I tore my left knee meniscus at work. WSIB physio was meant to make or break me. In fact, it broke me because I ended with a stress induced fracture to the right calcaneal bone (heel) 6 months later. I went to the ER immediately after work, and the ER doctor filled out the WSIB form insisting on erroneously stating the injury was caused by a fall almost 2 months ago. The WSIB adjudicator denied the Right fractured heel claim without waiting for the orthopedic specialist s input. The orthopedic specialist stated it was a stress fracture. The adjudicator was intent on undermining me–i.e. she would say, “heel” when I said I had a broken ankle. It turns out this bone is considered part of the ankle. Though my meniscus will never “Heal” ( it is torn) and without surgery, will never return to it’s prior anatomical position, the adjudicator says, “How can this fractured right heel have anything to do with your old meniscus injury, our doctor states it is healed!!” Well, if it is healed, why am I still having massage therapy and Chirotherapy on the right meniscus if it is healed? Of course, their paid doctor specialist is refusing to order a follow up MRI to confirm the meniscus is “healed” even though I have crunching–crepatus–now in the joint.
No integrity, and no good will. I am being bounced around like a ping pong ball.
After 30 years of nursing and never having a claim….
Warning, anyone filing a claim….WSIB’s mode of operatus is to vigorously pursue any method to discredit and deny your claim. The will try to confuse, discredit and attempt to have you contradict yourself. Don’t waste your time or breath. Get a lawyer.
1. I recognize as an employer paying your premiums as you’re required to so, you unlikely do not know who to believe. I will summarize what WSIB has been doing for at least a decade but has accelerated their attacks on injured workers in the last 5 years. WSIB collects premiums from employers to protect themselves from lawsuits & to provide for workers who are injured on the job. Like a person buying a life insurance policy, $100,000.00 for your dependents to provide for their financial futures. Imagine that when that day came and your family tries to collect with your death certificate in hand. The response of the insurance company was to tell your dependents & beneficiaries that they will only pay them $20.000.00 or simply refuse payment altogether take it or leave it…file an appeal. If you appeal though we may refuse past benefits paid to you. How would you feel? This is how injured workers are feeling. How is this possible? WSIB is an arm’s length agency of the Ministry of Labour. WSIB; Don Marshall, Elizabeth Witmer & John Slinger tells the Labour Minister what he wants to hear but the reality is completely different for injured workers. The truth is in the details. WSIB has implemented discriminatory policies that completely overrides WSIA legislation. Such as “deeming”; deeming an injured worker well enough to return to work based on WSIB’s new policy & not based on medical evidence of the worker. Creating clinics to rubber stamp this false medical information that contradicts a worker’s specialist reports. Outright denial of all benefits to older & psychologically injured workers based on new policy not WSIA. Deemed 80% to 100% reductions to injured workers benefits based on “phantom” wages when a injured remains medically unable to work. Why should employers care if it keeps their premium rates down? Employers are paying twice for these worker injuries, through premiums and through their taxes as these now poverty stricken injured workers & their families fall onto various government programs since WSIB is not paying legitimate claims, arbitrarily reducing benefits & health care supported by lots of medical evidence. My own situation is supported by numerous medical reports from 5 doctors & specialists stating I remain unable to work for medical reasons but WSIB has cut my benefits by 80% through deeming. Taxpayers are paying for these workers & their families since WSIB has refused to pay but this hasn’t stopped WSIB from collecting premiums so where are these premiums going? Check out the Sunshine list, there’re hundreds listed from WSIB. WSIB is suggesting this is necessary to cover an unfunded liability or put another way to put enough in their savings account to pay for bills that do not come do for payment for another 10-30 years. These injured workers & their families are your neighbours but they may also be your consumers. Therefore forcing them into bankruptcy doesn’t help local businesses.
This is some real statistics based on “real” people & their “real situation” after a workplace injury. This is 5 years old before WSIB stepped up its assault on Injured Workers’ benefits. WSIB is using information about injured workers’ outcomes post-injury from before 2000, today this situation is significantly worse.
Injured Workers and Poverty Survey 2010
A Community-based Participatory Research Project
Many Losses, Much Hardship
The Impact of Work Injury
FAST FACTS
• Before injury, 89% were employed full time; after injury 9%
• Nearly one in five lost their homes after injury
• Nearly one quarter had moved in with family or friends at some point after their injuries
• One in five injured workers could no longer afford a car
• Food bank use rose from 5 to 77 people after work injury
• 20% reported an overnight hospital stay the last 12 months (most because of the work injury) compared with 7% for the general population of Canadians
• Over half had not been able to afford medications in the past 12 months
• 57% of injured workers in the study were unemployed
For more information: wwwinjuredworkersonline.org
If I were paying premiums to WSIB in support of programs that were to help injured workers and were to keep them out of poverty and not dependent on society. I would feel ripped off by WSIB with these statistics. When John Slinger talks of quicker decisions, he talks of quicker denials that may force injured workers spend the next decade tied up in WSIB’s appeals process. When WSIB, John Slinger talks of the same number of claims accepted, how many are actually receiving the full 85% as promised or have they been “deemed” working & counted as a WSIB success story when in reality they are receiving so little with WSIB, their family has fallen onto Welfare since they are still medically unable to work. The truth is in the details, employers are being ripped off but seriously, permanently injured workers are being forced into poverty and to commit suicide as a direct result of WSIB’s new discriminatory and illegal policies that are undermining WSIA. Despite the huge number of WSIB workers on the sunshine list, WSIB has been stashing away billions into savings through claims denials or seriously & illegally reduced benefits, this has been done on the backs of hundreds of thousands of the most seriously injured workers. Type “Injured Worker” or WSIAT into Google for true stories and the backlog of appeals that remain delayed for at least a year to be heard. Eventually this situation will be exposed. Premiums are artificially low while WSIB’s wasteful spending continues unabated. The government plans on having Mr. Don Marshall do the same for Ontario’s No-Fault Auto Insurance system, this will affect all Ontarians. The Denial of Legitimate Contractual Insurance Benefits is not good management of expenses. Like paying premiums for $100,000. Benefit of Life Insurance but the Insurance Company refuses to pay the Benefits as promised. No other Insurance company could get away with this….what WSIB is trying to do is illegal.
I went to the OPP and tell everyone else to go as well to investigate the wsib for being fraudulent and that the pre existing condition is just that and coercing doctors is also fraudulent.