This week’s oddities and miscellanea from the world of workers’ comp

A few items of note have been accumulating on my desktop, each of them interesting/important but none worthy of a full post. Here they are for your enjoyment and edification:
– In a top candidate for worst idea of the month, WorkCompCentral reported [ sub req] today that the South Carolina Hospital Association wants surgical implants carved out of hospital bills and paid at 100% of the invoice price. You know, the invoice they draw up themselves in the finance office…
– Sources tell me there was a dustup at the Maine Workers Comp conference involving a representative from an IME company and a judge. The disagreement ended up in a fistfight, which resulted in the IME rep getting fired. I’m wondering if cocktails were involved, or if this was the result of a heated discussion over some fine point in Maine’s workers comp regulations. Or both?
– Word comes to MCM from North Dakota that there is a petition circulating demanding the Governor investigate Cynthia Freland, the prosecutor who may well have broken the law in her quest to convict former ND state WC fund CEO Sandy Blunt of something…anything. Fifty signatures are required, and sources in the far north tell me they are well on the way.
– In the ramp-up heading to next week’s annual work comp conference in Chicago, a preliminary and very unscientific poll indicates the new new thing is ebilling, and/or claims systems, and/or the renewed interest of the private equity/venture capital folks in work comp managed care.
– Speaking of which, the level of interest among the people with money to invest in work comp managed care is definitely up, although valuations are not. Typical multiples for deals closed, in process, and under discussion are in the 6 – 7.5x EBITDA range, with the high end rarely seen. There have been two factors limiting activity; low valuations are keeping owners from putting their companies up for sale, and the continued tight credit markets have made it difficult for investors to secure debt financing for deals. That said, the FairPay deal closed earlier this fall, and there are two others in the space that are said to be close to ‘done’.