Senate panel backs a working group to study vocational rehabilitation in workers’ compensation

The Senate Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs committee on Thursday advanced a redraft of S.173 that would remove a statutory initial screening step for vocational rehabilitation in the workers’ compensation system and establish a seven‑member working group to study how vocational rehabilitation operates and recommend legislative changes.

The working group, as drafted, would include the director of workers’ compensation and safety (or a designee), two representatives on behalf of workers’ compensation claimants, two representatives on behalf of employees and insurance carriers, and two currently certified vocational rehabilitation counselors. It would be required to meet between Aug. 15 and Dec. 15 and deliver a written report with findings and recommendations to this committee and the House committee on commerce and economic development ahead of the next legislative session; compensation and reimbursement for up to five meetings would be paid from monies appropriated to the Department of Labor.

Dirk Anderson, director of workers’ compensation at the Department of Labor, told the committee that his office’s numbers are rough but illustrative: about 150 initial rehabilitation screens occur annually and approximately 40% of those screenings are not approved for vocational rehabilitation, often because claimants are still recovering from scheduled surgery or are otherwise in medical transition. Anderson said that under the draft the parties not approved by the initial screener would be referred to a vocational rehabilitation counselor within 90 days for an entitlement assessment.

Advocates and counsel at the meeting argued the existing screening process—when performed by staff unfamiliar with workers’ compensation rules—can delay timely access to services and discourage claimants from pursuing vocational rehabilitation. Kelly Massacott (organization listed in the transcript as "Moth Association for Justice") said many prospective claimants either do not understand benefits or lose interest when the process is poorly explained, and that routing referrals to vocational rehabilitation counselors sooner could improve outcomes.

Representatives of insurers, including Jamie Phan of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said insurers support studying the process and asked for data on why the 40% nonapproval rate exists before making further policy changes. Multiple committee members agreed to fold unresolved technical questions into the working group’s charge while moving forward with removing the initial screening step in the draft.

The committee discussed where appointment authority should reside for the working‑group seats (options included the speaker, the president pro tempore, the governor and the committee on committees) and directed staff to redraft appointing language that would reflect committee preferences. Members said the working group should also examine whether the proposed changes would realize system‑wide cost savings and asked staff to add explicit language asking the group to assess cost impacts to the system.

The chair said the redraft was intended to look at the vocational rehabilitation system holistically and that members were generally inclined to accept the amendment as written, with unresolved items returned to the working group for study. No final floor vote on S.173 was recorded in the committee transcript; members agreed to return to the item and seek a possible report or vote at a later meeting.