Are workers comp claims ‘undercounted’?

Good friends and colleagues Frank Pennachio and Susan Toussaint’s WorkComp Advisory Group is conducting their annual get together at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago (scene for much of the movie ‘The Untouchables’. (Remember the scene with the baseball bat in the dining room after the big dinner?)
The keynote this morning was provided by Peter Rousmaniere, who spoke on, among other issues, what appears to be a significant problem with under-reporting of injuries to OSHA, and a more significant problem with low reporting rates for illnesses (which evidently OSHA does not require to be reported).
Peter described a couple of instances wherein employers asked clinicians to use Steri-strips to close a wound instead of stitches in the hope that this would reduce the need to report the injury as work-related. Evidently this may be more of an issue in food preparation, construction, and seasonal work.
A major airline reported no injuries at one airport, and four airports with no lost time injuries. Meanwhile, the national average injury rate was 11.9% – almost one in six employees were injured during the year, and the lost time injury rate was about one in thirty employees per year. It could be that the five facilities were particularly safety conscious, or perhaps claims were not reported due to other motivations.
Peter supported these – and other anecdotes, with citations from work done by Dr Glenn Pransky that also described some significant concerns with under-reporting of OSHA claims. I’d note this is separate from workers comp – OSHA claims don’t always have to be reported as work comp claims.
There’s the segue into comp.
That also spurred a lively conversation with several of the agents and brokers in attendance discussing the pros and cons of self-management of occ injuries.
Peter’s discussion reminded me of research I’d come across some months ago that provided more depth to the issue.
And here’s one item that should get anyone thinking.
More than 75,000 work comp injuries were not reported in just three cities last year [2008]. Close to a million may have gone unreported nationally.