The Whole Person

The annual meeting of the California Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau included a presentation by Bill Zachry, VP Risk Management for Safeway/Vons, which merged with Albertsons last year.

It is the second largest private employer in California with, I believe (and Bill correct me if I'm wrong) about 135,000 employees.

Bill was invited to speak to all of these insurance executives because under Bill's guidance Safeway/Vons has reduced its overall claims experience and costs, and has markedly increased its return to work rates (ergo, substantially reduced disability), and has done so using techniques that are not peculiar to the fact that the company is self-insured and self-administered.

This experience is in contrast to the rest of the state, which WCIRB Chief Actuary, Dave Belusci, pointed out is, "by any measure," the most expensive state in the nation because claims don't close quickly, there is greater indemnity and administration costs, and a greater share of the injured worker population get permanent disability benefits.

Zachary's experience, on the other hand, is contrary to the rest of the state. While California as a whole has seen its workers' compensation expense over the past dozen years increase over 120%, Vons/Safeway has seen its expense grow only 12%.

I'll cut to the chase - Bill worked hard to get his claims team to treat the whole person; to spend more now to save much more later; and finally, probably the easiest and most effective technique, to communicate.

I know - these are concepts that are antithetical to normal claims practices. But if a claims shop is really interested in doing the right thing, then frankly there is no excuse to adopt Bill's techniques; doing so would a) largely eliminate the negative claims image that pervades workers' compensation management, b) actually work to save employers (remember those guys? they're the ones that are ultimately responsible for our paychecks...), and c) get the injured back on the job.

Here's Zachry's pointers:

1) Nurses make medical decisions, not claims adjusters. This seems to be a no-brainer, and why this is not a widely adopted practice is simply a product of the penny-wise, pound foolish behavior of claims shops. What the hell does a claims adjuster know about medicine, physiology, or medical treatment? Right - just as much as you and me; i.e. basically nothing. They don't have the training, schooling or practice. It's not their job to practice medicine, so they shouldn't be doing that.

2) Zachry mandated an 8 hour turn around on medical decisions. Have an excuse? There is no excuse - because a trained medical professional is making a decision on medical treatment.

3) Compromise and Release all claims, regardless of whether the injured worker continues to work for the company. The reasoning is sound, and is contrary to accepted practice: let the injured worker get on with their lives and work. Why create an "artificial attachment" to the claim and claims process? The longer a claim stays open the more it costs, bottom line. If the claim is "stipulated" and stays open, so does the injured worker's attachment to the claim. He or she will never get past the injury and its sequelae. This also reduces exposure to the "Sisterhood of Traveling Body Parts."

4) The company established its own pharmacy benefit network with its own formulary. Zachry counseled that this was a difficult process and took about 5 years to get right, but the effect was dramatic. The company didn't experience the opioid addiction issue that has plagued the rest of America.

5) Utilization Review is electronically hooked up to Bill Review so that the bill reviewers know what treatment was actually approved and when; this alone saved upwards of 20% on medical costs: i.e. COMMUNICATION.

6) Speaking of communication, the Vons/Safeway team is trained to do it often, with empathy. Making sure that the injured worker stays in the know about the who, what, when, etc. of their claim greatly reduces attorney involvement.

7) Speaking of the Sisterhood, Zachry's team found that Adverse Childhood Experiences can have a profound effect on the ability of an injured worker to recover. Some of these ACEs may be obvious and known to the employee, but many are latent, sequestered by bad memories. The Vons/Safeway team scans with an innocuous 20 question survey early in every claim for potential ACEs and if a risk is identified therapy is provided early on. Zachry eschews the traditional fear of opening up psyche claims and his experience supports that view. Instead the experience is a much better claims experience and much improved outcomes for everyone. In other words, Zachry seeks to TREAT THE WHOLE PERSON! Think about it, using the AMA Guides we end up with a "whole person impairment" so why aren't we ensuring that the whole person is as well as can be for the job?

Okay, so the Vons/Safeway experience may be attributable to the one salient fact that its their own money - but what's to keep the insured employer, either directly or through their agent, broker, consultant, from demanding the same from their carrier?

Nothing, other than demand.

Demand it.

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Post script: Zachry had the following comment: "The only item you missed that it was (and is) done by the team.. I get a lot of the credit but not deservedly so... It really was Juanita Hayes, Anita Weir, Gilbert Cabrera, Cathey Jackson, Kelly Webb, and a host of others who made it happen."

The Value Image

I'm in San Francisco for the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau's annual meeting.

This is where carrier members of the WCIRB get together to take care of some various business items related to running the entity, and also to get some interesting perspectives on the health of the California work comp insurance market.

I put that in bold print because too many people confuse the business of workers' compensation insurance with the functioning of the system - they're related, for sure, but investors (the business side) want to know whether they are going to make money, and how much, by financing the system; not whether the system is working "correctly" or not.

Yesterday the Governing Committee of the WCIRB approved experience modification changes to the employer rating structure, moving costs for Independent Medical Review and Independent Bill Review out of the medical cost containment category of expenses, and changes to calculating premiums for the horse racing industry, among others.

The insurance industry ranks near the lowest of despised enterprises in the public's eye. Agents and brokers are denigrated in the media (e.g. "Ground Hog Day"), actuaries and their mysterious jobs are the brunt of endless jokes about bland personalities, and carrier profits are nearly always seen by the customer (employer and injured worker) as excessive regardless of the actual rate of return.

The business of providing the financing for the system is brutal and rife with risk, but unless a jurisdiction wants a sole governmental provider (which nearly no one wants, even in the few monopolistic states left), there is no better means of meeting the century old obligations that we call work comp.

Yet, more than ever it seems, work comp is under attack. The critical noise about the system has risen dramatically over the past year.

There are national and regional based publications that make the case the system no longer adequately serves injured workers.

The "opt-out" camp argues that employers are paying too much for too little.

Vendors to the system - the medical community and other suppliers - say that work comp pays too little for too much hassle and that there is a race to the bottom.

Legislators just get tired of hearing about the whining and, from my perspective, seem to pass whatever they think will get work comp complainers to shut up.

There is pressure from big medical, like Kaiser and Blue Cross, who are trying to muscle in with integrated care.

And there is pressure from really big business, like Walmart, to maximize economies of scale and muscle down pricing of suppliers (be it claims services, medical services, even reinsurance).

Perhaps most notably, though, pressure is increasing from the people that pay for work comp – the employers (despite the fact that rates are near historical lows relative to 20 years ago).

Employers seem to be increasingly frustrated with workers' compensation, and I think largely that's because they fail to see value. What work comp does for business isn't well understood, nor is it appreciated.

The value is not appreciated, of course, until the employer, lacking insurance, gets sued for a work injury and loses everything - the last thing an employer wants is to have a ‘jury of your peers’ decide whether right or wrong and determine how much "wrong" is worth by the judgement passed down; it's unpredictable, expensive and as we all know potentially quite ruinous.

We’ve been doing this work comp thing for just over 100 years. and it seems that no one believes it is delivering on the original promise – or at least not at a price that anyone is willing to continue paying.

Regardless, I never hear anyone make a cogent argument for some work injury protection plan different than workers' compensation. The opt-out camp likes personalized plans, but when the skin is peeled back the similarities to traditional work comp are striking. What's different is the degree of employer control over the process; this seems to give those employers a sense of "value" and return on their investment.

When we ask employers to tell us what they want in a work injury protection system we get what is commonly known as "reform." More often than not, reform sparks its own issues, and because wedding medical care with compensating for disability is notoriously complex there is always some dissatisfaction, confusion, and unintended consequences.

The workers' compensation industry does a terrible job of telling its story to the general public. The public knows more about Apple Watches and Kim Kardashian than workers' compensation.

Yet, work comp is vital to both Apple and Hollywood.

We can argue back and forth about what work comp should look like, what it should do, how it should perform, etc.

I don't think we can argue, however, that it is about as good of a solution to the perplexing job of mitigating the risk of work place injury. There may be debate about the details, but strip away the layers and the basic premise is still cogent.

Work comp provides value. For some it may not be enough value. For others there may be too much going in the wrong direction. 

To most that value isn't appreciated or even understood.

[Shameless plug - help turn the image around and nominate a person or company for a Comp Laude award: https://www.workcompcentral.com/gala-voting.]

MPN Means Managed

Medical Provider Networks, introduced into the California workers' compensation system around 2003, are one form of managed care.

The purpose of MPNs was to reduce medical treatment costs.

But like anything "managed," success depends upon the actual management.

In particular management for the right reasons.

In the case of MPNs in workers' compensation, management just to reduce medical costs isn't a sufficient end goal because the medical component of workers' compensation affects all of the other components such as disability, indemnity, return to work, etc.

The California Workers' Compensation Institute has just released a report on MPNs that essentially concludes that well managed MPNs work, and those that aren't, don't.

Image from Total Managed Care, Inc.

The study reviewed claims pre-MPN (the Preferred Provider Organization model period), the period of transition around 2003-04, and then the period when full MPN implementation was realized (Accident Year 2009 and beyond).

In summary the researchers found:

• Overall, network utilization increased from 55.4 percent in the PPO model period (AY 2000 – AY 2002) to 79.5 percent in the full MPN period (AY 2009 – June AY 2011), while for indemnity claims it more than tripled from 24.4 percent to 77.2 percent.

• The proportion of all network claims with attorney involvement increased from 12.2 percent in the PPO period to 17.4 percent in the full MPN period.

• The claim closure rate for network claims measured at 12 months post-injury decreased from 72.7 percent in the PPO period to 61.2 percent in the full MPN period.

• The percentage of network claims with at least one opioid prescription increased from 39.1 percent in the PPO period to 54.5 percent in the full MPN period.

• Differences in average risk-adjusted medical payments between network and non-network claims varied greatly by region, ranging from no difference in Los Angeles County to a 20 percent difference in San Diego County in the full MPN period.

• Average risk-adjusted medical payments on indemnity claims at 24 months post injury were 16 percent less for network claims than for non-network claims in the PPO period, but were only 3 percent less in the full MPN period. 

• Average risk-adjusted medical payments on indemnity claims with attorney involvement were 14 percent less for network claims than non-network claims in the PPO period, but were 2 percent more in the full MPN period.

• Average risk-adjusted medical payments on network claims with opioids were 16 percent less for network claims than non-network claims in the PPO period, but were 20 percent less in the full MPN period.

So, while the use of networks to medically manage treatment of work-related injuries has fulfilled the legislative intent to encourage network use (which increased from 55 percent of work injuries prior to MPN implementation to 80 percent in the fully implemented MPN period), over time the MPNs has not lowered the cost of medical care.

But this is on an overall model assessment. The researchers point out that there was considerable variation across the individual MPNs sampled, and that just as many networks had lower cost per claim outcomes as higher cost per claim outcomes.

What seemed to affect many MPNs are access requirements controlled by law and regulation - the more geographically diverse MPNs have a more difficult time fulfilling those mandates, and, ergo, experience greater diversity in outcomes.

In other words, the success of any one single MPN is highly dependent on how well managed it is - cutting medical treatment payments is not, and can not be, the sole reason for an MPN. Other outcomes need to be considered when a claims payer goes shopping, or decides to create their own, MPN.

This is evident in the findings that claim closure rates with MPNs takes longer, and that opioid prescription was higher - these are findings that are contradictory to good claims management and positive outcomes.

CWCI's Research Note, “PPO to MPN: Impact of Physician Networks in the California Workers’ Compensation System,” is available to members and subscribers in the Research section of the CWCI website.

WorkCompCentral will have a more detailed story on the report, with commentary, in the coming days.

Even Uninsured Employers Need Love

This is a guest post from California attorney Zachary Sacks.

Zachary and his firm specialize in the defense of uninsured employers, of which there are too many. The bottom line to Mr. Sacks' observations is that there are many, many employers who think they are safe, and think they are doing the right thing, but are either ignorant of the law and its consequences, or are lulled into apathy upon the reliance of others.

In any case, as tragic as bad outcomes are for injured workers, this is a reminder that workers' compensation, for all its faults, is still better than no protection at all.

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When you look to categorize employers in Workers’ Compensation most fall into one of two categories:  insured and self -insured. They are the “good” employers since they took the steps to take care of their injured workers.  Yet there is another category consisting of the despised and reviled employers who have no coverage of any kind in place: uninsured employers.  The common perception is that they are this way (uninsured) out of an intention to save a buck.  In our California legal system these uninsured employers are formally referred to as “illegally uninsured” and they are statutory criminals.  They are suspect in their testimony (as recounted by some in our judiciary) because, after all, they are trying to protect themselves from their own misfeasance by not procuring the mandatory insurance coverage. Their employees do not have the constrictions or benefits of a medical provider network, and utilization review does not exist for them.  Injured workers are free to seek whomsoever they wish to treat them and there are no formal checks on the amount or nature of the treatment, contrary to the way it exists with insured employers and utilization review of treatment.  

These employers are accused of defrauding the system, making a level playing field impossible for the good employers, who obtain insurance at their own expense.  Their lack of appropriate action has resulted in burdening the state with the need for another bureaucratic entity to handle the damage they create (our Uninsured Employers Benefit Trust Fund).   

In return, they are exposed to sweeps by assistant district attorneys and investigators and subject to big time fines ($10,000 - $50,000) of a criminal nature, misdemeanor criminal conviction, civil fines from the Labor Commissioner ($1500 per uncovered employee), 10% penalties in the WCAB case, potential attorney fee  payment in the compensation case, dual exposure to civil and WCAB litigation, ( unlike insured employers) , loss of classic defenses in civil suits (contributory negligence, assumption of the risk and fellow servant defenses).  Billboards encouraging the reporting of their uninsured status have dotted our landscape in San Diego County and news of their arrest and possible imprisonment is circulated throughout our state as cautionary tales for the criminal minded.  These are just a few of the parade of horrors visited upon the uninsured employer.

But in reality who really are the vast majority of these employers?  Are they all schemers and criminally minded?  Are they intentionally out to beat the system? Are these the ones we should even care about? 

Based upon our defense of many hundreds of these uninsured employers over the years we have found that the vast majority of them are just misinformed or uninformed innocents who lacked a clue with regard to the requirement that they carry this kind of coverage. Many believed that the liability insurance their broker sold them affords all the protection they needed.  In the melting pot of cultures that California is, many first time employers never knew they had to have this kind of insurance in business, as opposed to the way it was in their foreign homelands. 

Alternatively many believe that the person performing work for them is either an independent contractor, because their accountant described them in that fashion, or casual day laborers who are not really employees, hence no need for this kind of insurance.  Others are certain that hiring relatives or dear, close friends does not make them employees who might sue, since relatives and friends would never ever do that, right?

Others have encountered genuine financial downturns which could have threated the very life of the business unless judicious emergency economies were embraced.  Those economies involved non- payment of premium, but just until things got better.

No matter the excuse, the system is blind to the havoc, pain and loss of dreams experienced by the uninsured employer who, in the vast majority of cases, is a very small business or professional person struggling to get by.  When the injury hits their newly defined “employee”, there goes the college fund for their child or children; there goes the savings account; there goes the nest egg and sadly in the end there goes the business, the nights of sleep and the hopes and dreams of making a go of it.

In California the injured worker always gets paid in the end, as do the worker’s providers, if the claim is legitimate.  Granted, the payment is not until the very end of the case and not timely enough to aid the worker in the early stages of his plight.  In the end, however, there is a payment for all of those benefits just as if there were insurance in place, and thus the worker is not completely abandoned.  

Not so for the uninsured employer, whose options for relief come down to years of repaying the state, flight or bankruptcy.  With total cost of a typical workers’ compensation case (with all costs from start to finish years later, combined with penalties) hovering above $80,000 is it any wonder that the uninsured business would be finished and the dreams destroyed? 

Traditionally all of our attention has been focused upon the unfortunate injured worker and the travails that he/she must endure by virtue of their employer not taking the proper care of them by securing workers’ compensation insurance.  Taking care of the injured worker is the purpose of the entire workers’ compensation system, as well it should be. 

But let us take a moment  to pause and think of that other participant, the uninsured employer, whose tragedy is often,  if not always,  dismissed with the admonishments that he only has himself to blame, that it is his own fault, and ignorance of the law is no excuse and, often unkindly, he gets what he deserves.  

This should not be taken as an apologia.  This should not be taken as offering an acceptable excuse for being uninsured.  This should be taken as an opening to an awareness that we are not always talking about villains and scoundrels. We are talking about the other victim. The reality is that there are two victims: the injured employee and the uninsured employer, and they each have their own kind of hurt; yet the uninsured employer remains despised by most in our system.  That is unfortunate and ill willed.  We are not talking about those out to intentionally game the system but rather the hapless and or ill informed. Their story is filled with grief too, both emotionally and financially.  They play their part in our system and it is a sad one.  

Even uninsured employers need love.

By Zachary H. Sacks, Managing Partner

Sacks & Zolonz, LLP

Culver City, Rancho Cucamonga, and Orange, California

Gatsby and Huff

I hardly ever watch movies.

Unless it's a 13 hour trans-continental flight - then I watch three.

In a row.

One of them was The Great Gatsby, with Toby McGuire as the narrator, Nick, and Leonardo DiCarprio as Gatsby.

I read the book, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in college as part of a class assignment. The movie seemed true to the book, from what I recall.

McGuire's character, Nick, is a mental patient whose depression and other psychological maladies are the product of excess and disillusionment born out of the 1920s before the stock market crash, in particular his experiences in New York City.

Gatsby was a great illusion, a fraud, perpetrated ostensibly so he could retrieve Daisy, the love of his life, but the deeper intonations are related to unregulated, incomparable, greed.

Indeed, Nick ruminates over gre

ed and how it destroys people, both the greedy and their victims, from the inside out.

Of course all of this are metaphors for what Fitzgerald saw as all that illed society at that time.

Things don't change much though - greed still is a pervasive disease.

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Wilbur Anthony Huff will spend 12 years in federal prison for his greed.

His greed wasn't unlike Gatsby's - a fraud, an illusion.

His scheme led to the collapse of two workers' compensation carriers and left nearly $100 million in liabilities spread across 36 states.

In December Huff admitted defrauding Oklahoma insurance regulators, bribing bank officials and various tax crimes. He agreed to pay $139.4 million in restitution as part of a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald denied a sentencing continuance, and ordered Huff to pay $50 million in restitution to the Oklahoma Department of Insurance, the receiver of Park Avenue Property and Casualty Insurance Co.

I doubt anyone will see any money. Part of the reason Buchwald denied the continuance is because Huff hasn't yet made any payments on $35 million in civil judgments.

Huff is required to commence restitution payments 30 days after he is released from custody, meaning the first payment could be as late as July 2027. And, he's only required to make monthly payments equal to 10% of his gross income.

Indeed, Huff left in his greedy wake a slew of institutional and governmental victims, and we certainly don't know the extent that injured workers were affected by these schemes, as money dried up for claims and claim guarantee associations tried to cope with the mess.

A database maintained by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners estimates total outstanding liabilities for Park Avenue total $69.2 million. That number grows to $96.6 million with the $27.4 million losses from Imperial Casualty Indemnity Co., another insolvent carrier Oklahoma regulators say was part of Huff's scheme.

Huff's scheme hit Michigan the hardest, with NAIC data showing $17.7 million in liabilities for Park Avenue claims and $1.8 million in liabilities for Imperial claims.

Florida was the second-largest victim with $18.4 million in losses from Park Avenue claims to cover, according to NAIC.

NAIC also estimates total liabilities of:

• $12.7 million in Georgia, with $10.3 million attributed to Park Avenue and $2.3 million to Imperial. 
• $6 million in South Carolina, with $5.3 million assigned to Park Avenue and $738,593 to Imperial. 
• $5.4 million in Alabama, $3.1 million for Park Avenue claims and $2.3 million for Imperial Claims. 
• $4.4 million in Texas, with $4.2 million in liabilities for Park Avenue and $217,360 for Imperial. 

Other states with liabilities for Imperial or Park Avenue claims include Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia.

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'Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he's a gambler.' Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: 'He's the man who fixed the World's Series back in 1919.'

'Fixed the World's Series?' I repeated....'Why isn't he in jail?'

'They can't get him, old sport. He's a smart man.'

Motorcycles, Italy and Comp

This is my last blog post until after June 3.

I'm going on vacation. Leaving on a jet plane with my son to ride motorcycles in the Tuscany region of Italy.

Interestingly enough, there was an article in Business Insider the other day on how teenagers can convince their fathers (and they were adamant to ask Dad, not Mom...) to permit motorcycle ownership.

My motorcycle affliction started early. I was 10 years old when a neighborhood kid got one of those hard tailed, Tecumsah lawn mower engine powered mini bikes.

I'm sure you've seen The Simpsons, and when Bart and Lisa want something they engage in an endless verbal assault on the parents until they get what they want.

I don't think it gets better....

That was my brother and me. Mom of course was sure that we were either going to kill ourselves, get maimed and disabled in the process, or get tattoos and join the Hell's Angels.

Dad was more circumspect. Since I had, for example, already attempted parachuting with a bed sheet from the second story roof of our home (along with many other death defying antics), he figured I was going to get killed, maimed and disabled and/or get a tattoo even without a motorcycle.

And besides, "you meet the nicest people on a Honda."

So he came home with Honda's answer to the mini-bike, a much more refined solution, the Trail 50. Hard tail, three speed centrifugal clutch transmission and folding handlebars.

45 years later, and of course many injuries and, yes, trips to the emergency room, and I'm proud to say that the same lessons I learned riding and owning motorcycles have been passed along to my children (though my daughter doesn't presently own or ride, but she's busy guiding tourists in Alaska rock climbing, zip-lining and trail hiking).

The Business Insider article lists 8 things a teenager can do to convince Dad to permit motorcycle ownership - these of course are applicable to workers' compensation (you knew that!):

1. Preface your argument with accomplishments. Much has been made lately about the general media attack on workers' compensation. If we are being honest with ourselves, a lot of these articles have enough truth to them to make us hurt - we don't like that reality. But the opposite reality is true as well: this industry does a lot of good too. We need to be more verbal about our accomplishments, but also acknowledge (and seek to rectify) our shortcomings.

2. Point to your responsibilities. We accomplish good things, and we have responsibility for millions of people and billions of dollars. It's not an easy job and it takes maturity and professionalism to carry out the mission.

3. Remind him of his younger self. We go there often enough, but that time was several generations ago, and the history isn't appreciated. What can be more scary, however, as a business owner than facing a jury of your peers about to determine just how much money you are going to have to pay, without limitation? Hmmm, all of a sudden the set financial limits of workers' compensation seem like a bargain.

4. Register for a [motorcycle safety] class before talking to him. Work comp is complex. We do lots of things and navigate conflicting laws to get to an outcome that hopefully is positive. The only way to do this is to stay educated and up to date on the ever changing subtleties of workers' compensation law and how it intertwines with other medical and disability laws.

5. Involve him in the decision. Once a claim gets into our collective hands, communications with both the employer and injured worker tend to get stifled. There are lots of required legal notices that go out, for sure, but no lay person can understand them. Frequent telephone calls and personal meetings informing of status, and inviting comment or participation in the decision making process go a very long way towards smooth claim management (and hugely reduced litigation rates).

6. Have the gear already picked. In other words, be prepared to demonstrate that you are ready to take on the responsibility and be safe. Show the employer and the injured worker that you have the necessary "gear" to manage the claim efficiently, safely, expertly, to a desired outcome.

7. Deploy the male bonding argument. This is about riding with Dad. And its about riding with the employer and the claimant - we're in this all together. This is a shared adventure that will build us in many ways to be better people.

8. Learn the details. Study as much as you can about what you are engaging in and present as many options as possible. Read. Learn. Connect.

Yes, pitching workers' compensation to the employer grumbling about the expense, or the injured worker frightened by the process, is much like convincing Dad to allow you to get a motorcycle. The perceptions can be overridden by cogent and responsible evidence.

WorkCompCentral does this every first Saturday of December - this year, 12/05/2015 - with our Comp Laude Awards and Gala. This year it's national in scope and we're going to tell the rest of the world that workers' compensation can work and do good things when executed properly. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

I discussed some of this with Alan Gurvey, managing partner of applicant law firm Rowen, Gurvey & Win, last night which was recorded for his radio show, Gurvey's Law, on Los Angeles a.m. frequency 790 (KABC Talk Radio). It will air Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. It will also be posted as a podcast here.

I'll be back in a few weeks to tell you, likely, that there really isn't much better than riding Ducati Multistrada motorcycles around Italy with your son.

I'm sure there isn't ... but I do need to confirm this. Type at you in a couple weeks.

Back of the Bus

Cesar Chavez

Our own government, by its actions, discriminates against Hispanics.

Speaking Spanish is less valuable than any other language, according to the California Division of Workers' Compensation in its latest release of SB 863's mandated interpreter fee schedule and regulations.

Karla Navarro, a certified medical interpreter, argued that paying less for Spanish interpretation will create a shortages.

“According to the U.S. Census, by 2050 the Hispanic population will be double what it is today,” she wrote in comment. “Many of these Spanish speaking people will take labor based jobs in which they will most likely be hurt and file a workers’ comp claim. This will lead to needing interpretation for medical appointments and with the proposed changes for regulations and fees, there is very little chance that the work force will be able to meet these needs.”

“We know of no other government fee schedule that singles out Spanish for sub-standard remuneration,” wrote Carl Brakensiek, executive director of the California Society of Industrial Medicine and Surgery.

What DWC is thinking, I'm sure, is that there are so many hispanic workers in the work comp system, and so many that interpret Spanish to English and visa-versa, that they are nearly a majority, and ergo, should be subject to the same expectations that English speaking workers are subject to - i.e. virtually no interpretation.

It's almost as if the government is saying that Spanish is now just a dialect of American English...

Or perhaps the thinking is that market forces will solve the pricing differential and only those truly dedicated to Spanish/English interpretation will stay in the game.

The message that is conveyed, unfortunately, is that discrimination is alive and well in 2015.

Ironically, California state government, including DWC, recognizes with a day of rest the efforts of the late, great Cesar Chavez, who fought long and hard for Hispanic immigrant rights.

As a lawyer, I had been through many depositions and court proceedings where the claimant was mono-lingual Spanish. Not only is there limitation in the native language, but nuances between regions and dialects can result in many different interpretations; subtle differences can result in substantial interpretation challenges.

What's spoken in the fields of the Central Valley is not Castilian Spanish. What's spoken in the court room, or the medical examining room, isn't the Queen's English.

I've argued before that the proposed regulations are overly complicated and invite work arounds and abuse. The resolution can be very simple...

In the meantime, if you speak Spanish, sit in the back of the bus.