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Notes on the Legislature and Workers' Compensation
Author: | Tuesday June 05, 2007
Georgia Self Insurance Association provides Digest of Legislative Developments.
Notes from the GSIA
Digest on Legislation
Ed. Note: The Georgia Self Insurers Association (GSIA) publishes a digest reporting on legislation impacting workers' compensation and the self insurance industry. Following is the latest as of the publication date of Georgia1st.com. To learn more about the GSIA visit www.gsia.net.
The Burn Center at Doctors Hospital in August and the State Board of workers' Compensation agreed on increased fees for two DRGs, ending the threat of legislation that would have undermined the fee schedule," reported the GSIA Digest.
The GSIA and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce "strongly opposed stand alone legislation and a proposed amendment that would have exempted the Burn Centre in Augusta and the burn unit at Grady Memorial Hospital from the State Board's fee schedule.
The Digest said that such an exemption would have "inevitably led to an unraveling of the fee schedule and soaring medical costs under workers' compensation." The Digest report that under the agreement that is in place, the State Board's bill to include prescription drugs under the fee schedule should pass without substantive amendments. At press time the bill had been passed by the house and was in the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee.
State OSHA
The GSIA Digest reported that legislation introduced by Rep. Ron Forster of Ringgold would create a "Division of Occupational Safety and Health" within the Georgia Department of Labor. The bill will be carried over to the 2008 legislative session.
The bill provides for an OSHA director to be appointed by the Commissioner of Labor and an assistant director to be appointed by the director. The bill would also provide for a nine member council appointed by the Governor. The role of the office would be to develop and enforce rules and regulations to seek to attain "the highest degree of safety and health protection for any and all employees working with the State of Georgia, in both the public and private sector.
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