NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Legislation that reforms Tennessee’s workers’ compensation system to make the state more attractive to job creation, while protecting injured employees, topped a busy week on Capitol Hill. Senate Bill 200 would cut costs to businesses, create more predictability, improve the efficiency of claims management, simplify the physician selection process for injured employees and reduce benefit delays to workers. The legislation comes as a result of two comprehensive studies tasked with identifying possible recommendations for improving the program.
Tennessee is one of only two states in which workers’ compensation cases are settled primarily in the courts. In following, the state’s workers’ compensation premium costs are higher in Tennessee than in bordering states.
Highlights of the bill include:
In other workers’ compensation action this week, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to allow the Department of Labor to access fines on unscrupulous construction employers who are found guilty of workers’ compensation premium fraud. The bill seeks to assist legitimate construction employers who compete against contractors who have insurance but intentionally underreport their payroll or nature of their work to insurance carriers in order to lower their premium payments.
Currently, premium fraud enforcement can only come from criminal charges by district attorneys general or civil suits by the state’s Attorney General. However, due to scarce resources, those charges rarely occur.
Senate Bill 833 is the result of the recommendations of the Department of Labor’s Employee Misclassification Advisory Task Force and only applies to the construction industry.
Finally, the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee approved legislation to ensure Tennessee workers injured while temporarily on a job out-of-state are covered under Tennessee's workers' compensation law. Senate Bill 432 provides reciprocity for employees from other states who are temporarily on a job in Tennessee.