Groups eager to see workers' comp change

By BILL LEWIS for the Tennessean.Com
Staff Writer March 17, 2004

Business groups hope Gov. Phil Bredesen will renew his call for action on revamping workers' compensation when he addresses a statewide business organization today.

Bredesen said in January that Tennessee's system of providing health care and lost wages to employees who are injured on the job is flawed and is causing the state to lose manufacturing jobs.

Since then, two separate committees in the legislature have examined the system, hearing from business, labor unions, trial lawyers who represent injured workers and organizations that have analyzed workers' compensation laws across the country.

Those groups disagree on possible solutions, or even whether there is a problem.

Now, eight weeks into the legislative session, both committees are still hearing testimony. But neither committee has a specific bill to recommend to the full legislature.

Business groups hope Bredesen will break up that logjam today when he speaks to the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry at noon.

''There does appear to be a little movement, but there's no way to know where it's going to go,'' said Bob Pitts, head of the Associated Builders and Contractors.

''I still personally believe they are going to do something. The question is how substantial,'' Pitts said of the administration and the legislature.

So far Bredesen has left it up to legislators to craft a workers' compensation bill.

Pitts and Rob Ikard, the state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, want a bill to include limits on the amount of money the courts can award to partially disabled workers, especially those who go back to work and earn as much money, or more, as they did before they were hurt.

Pitts and Ikard also want legislation that would essentially set rates that doctors can charge in workers' compensation cases. Those fees are unregulated today and are blamed by businesses for making workers' compensation cases more expensive in Tennessee than in many surrounding states.

Ikard said he is hopeful there will be action but there are no guarantees.

''We can read the tea leaves like everybody else,'' he said.

So far, Ikard said, the leaves are saying that action on a bill is still possible but not certain.

''Time's running out,'' said Sen. Mark Norris, R-Collierville, who favors restructuring workers' compensation.

Some lawmakers may fear retribution if they support the governor on the issue, and they are trying to delay the process until after April 1. That's the deadline for legislative candidates to qualify for the next election, Norris said. If that is the case, the legislature would have just one month to consider a bill before its May 1 target date for adjournment, he said.

Careful deliberation is all right with the Tennessee Medical Association, which represents about 6,000 Tennessee doctors. The TMA wants to be sure that medical fees are not set too low.

Doctors who are already struggling with what they see as low TennCare payments might not be willing to participate in the workers' compensation system if rates are cut too much, said Scott Smith, the TMA's director of government affairs. That would make it harder for an injured worker to find a doctor, he said.

Business groups are wrong to say that physicians' rates are too high, he added. ''I would question that conclusion. We are lower than some states with fee schedules,'' Smith said.

Not long after Bredesen's speech at a downtown hotel, a surgeon will address one of the legislature's workers' compensation committees, Smith said. An economist representing the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association also will speak to the committee.

The message that trial lawyers lobbyist John Summers has for the committee is that the administration and the business community haven't proved their contention that the state's workers' compensation system costs Tennessee jobs.

''Our position is they haven't substantiated their claims that we're not economically competitive with other states,'' Summers said.