A hostage standoff in the Bureau of Worker's Compensation offices in Columbus, Ohio, focused the media's sights on perceived bureaucratic apathy of the agency. An armed man, angry because the bureau ignored his injury claim, stormed into the government building and took several hostages. Though the situation ended without gunfire or injury, it set off a firestorm of similar complaints taking aim at the bureau.
Paul Adrian, an investigative reporter for WBNS-TV who attended NICAR boot camp in May 1996, engineered a data-intensive segment involving worker's compensation claims and the delay between claims and payment.
Adrian pounced on a BWC fact sheet that claimed the average time between an injured worker's claim and initial payment was 42 days. Analysis of the state's records indicated the average statewide lag time was, in fact, 106 days.
The discrepancy came from the time frame the BWC used in their assertion. The bureau's figures were based upon an average time that spanned only four months. If they had used a larger sample period, their numbers would have changed dramatically. They also based their figures on claims actually paid and disregarded the pending claims that languish away in the appeals process.
This led Adrian to ask why there was such long wait between injury claims and compensation. The answer seemed simple: employers dispute the claims for financial reasons.
A fact sheet claimed the average time between an injured worker's claim and initial payment was 42 days. Analysis indicated the average statewide lag time was, in fact, 106 days.
"While that's one of the reasons, it's not the only one," Adrian said. "If you pulled out all the contested claims, I think you would find that the lag was still much longer than claimants want."
Contested claims
A second trip into the data showed that when claims are contested, the average waiting period for the first worker's compensation payment shot up to 272 days. "The 272-day figure is for the top 12 companies. If you look at all the companies that appeal claims, the average is 152 days."
Across Ohio, Adrian located the companies that contest the highest percentage of claims. The list included well-known entities like the City of Cleveland, United Dairy Farmers, Raytheon Appliances and Ameritemp.
Adrian interviewed the attorneys handling Ameritemp's worker's injury claims. They simply said that with the amount of claims filed, the company can't afford to let every case go unchallenged - a high number of claims translates into high insurance premiums for employers.
USDA graded
Adrian recently beefed up another story with data analysis.
Using meatpacking and slaughterhouse data maintained by the USDA, he discovered an area plant with multiple violations. The data, known as PDR (process deficiency report) summary data, contain a list of violations by individual plants. Although detail of the violations doesn't extend beyond classification as either a minor, major or critical violation, the total number of inspections performed is listed. The seriousness of the plant's violations can be discerned by examining the number of critical or major violations compared to the number of inspections performed. Adrian used the data to confirm that a processing plant in nearby Bowling Green was one of Ohio's major violators. After finding that the plant supplied meat products to several local food chains, he employed basic reporting skills to add background. He found the plant's USDA inspector, who was responsible for filing most of the critical reports - from there the story took on a life of its own.
Slaughterhouse jive
The inspector was embroiled in a lawsuit filed by an employee of the processing plant who alleged sexual harassment by the inspector. Adrian says he's still sorting through "some juicy PDR's." Curt Poff can be reached by email at curt@nicar.org.