How workers' comp can hurt employees
Good morning!
Welcome to Your Week, our exclusive newsletter where each Sunday we feature our best coverage and highlight what we have coming up during the week ahead.
I'm politics & investigations editor Duane Gang.
👷 What happens when you are hurt on the job and the companies hired to handle your claim break state rules?
That is a question investigative reporter Daniel Connolly worked to find out. Daniel, one of my colleagues at The Commercial Appeal, our sister news organization in Memphis, spent months examining public records to see how the state handled companies that improperly denied medical care.
The answer? Not much. In some cases, the fines for repeatedly blocking necessary medical care were as little as $250 — if there was even a fine.
Today, we launch a two-part series examining Tennessee's workers' compensation system with a particular focus on the outside firms companies hire to manage those claims.
Daniel reports on how out-of-state doctors can deny care for patients they have not examined in person. One New Jersey doctor, for instance, has had his decisions overturned by the state more than 170 times.
We know workers' comp is complicated. So Daniel put together a guide with helpful tips about how to navigate the system if you are hurt on the job. Be sure to check that out as well.
💡 This reporting took time and required Daniel to go over hundreds of pages of documents. It could not have been done without the support of subscribers, both here in Nashville and in Memphis.
Your subscription is how you can support the work of our journalists and our mission of holding power to account.
⭐ Your subscription also helps us shine a spotlight on the good in our community. It's what my colleague Brad Schmitt is doing every week in his new newsletter. If you haven't already, sign up and tell your friends and family to subscribe so they, too, can read The Good News with Brad Schmitt every Friday — right in your inbox. You can sign up here.
Thank you for reading and for your continued support.
— Duane W. Gang, The Tennessean
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How workers' comp can hurt employees
