Millions of workers have been uprooted by COVID-19 and been thrown into a “new normal” of working from home offices. To further complicate things, many individuals were provided with only a laptop and little, if any, education on setting up an ergonomically correct workstation.

As a result, many home office – based workers potentially face suboptimal working conditions. Workers across the nation have converted their basements, spare rooms, dining room tables or bedrooms into makeshift offices.

Kermit Davis, PhD, an expert in office ergonomics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, conducted an ergonomic assessment of employees at the University of Cincinnati sending out an email survey to 4,500 faculty and staff after the coronavirus pandemic prompted the university to join many other employers across the nation in sending workers home to continue operations.

The survey had 843 people complete it. As part of the study, 41 employees sent Davis photos of workers at home workstations for ergonomic review. This subset showed some trends and offered a glimpse into what many who work from home are encountering. The survey’s findings were recently published in the scholarly journal Ergonomics in Design.

Davis says the ergonomic evaluations of the home workstations identified many issues that could be adversely affecting the workers. Many chairs were the wrong height with about 41% too low and 2% too high. Fifty-three percent of workers had armrests on their chairs, but 32% did not use them and for 18% of workers the armrests were improperly adjusted, the study found.

Davis says not using the armrests causes contact stress on forearms when rested on the hard front edge of work surfaces and strain across the upper back as the arms need support. Also, support of the back of the chair was not used by 69% and often without any lumbar support for 73% of survey participants. That meant many individuals did not have proper support of their lower back, maintaining the lumbar curvature.

The position of a computer monitor was often too low or off to the side. Three quarters of monitors were laptops, which were too low relative to the workers’ eye height, the study found. External monitors were also routinely set up too low in 52% of participants or too high in 4%. Another common issue with the monitors was the lack of the primary screens centered in front of the workers occurring in 31% of workers and resulting in twisting of the neck and/or back to view the monitor, according to the study.

Here are a few tips that might be helpful for the homebound office worker:

— Place a pillow on your seat to elevate the seat height.
— Place a pillow or rolled up towel behind your back to provide lumbar and back support.
— Wrap armrests when they are low and not adjustable.
— Move your chair closer to the desk or table to encourage having the back against the back of the seat.
— If a laptop is too low, place a lap desk or large pillow under the laptop to raise the monitor when using it on the lap.
— Use an external keyboard and mouse, along with raising the laptop monitor by placing a stack of books or a box under the laptop when using a laptop on a desk.
— An appropriate standing workstation should have the top of the monitor at eye height and directly in front, keyboard at a height so that forearms are parallel to the ground (approximately 90° elbow angle), and a soft or rounded front edge to the working surface.
— If obtaining a new chair or identifying an appropriate sitting workstation at home is not possible, rotating between a poor sitting workstation and a standing workstation would be the next best practice. There are many simple, makeshift standing workstations available in the home, including implementing the use of an ironing board, a kitchen counter, the top of a piano, a clothes basket placed upside down on a table or desk or a large box under the laptop.

Maurosan Milhomem pleaded no contest to six felonies related to his complex fraud schemes of insurance premium fraud and payroll tax fraud. He also admitted a white collar crime enhancement that he caused the loss of more than $500,000.

Milhomem is the owner of Viking Pavers, Inc., a construction company based out of Point Richmond, California. The successful resolution to this criminal case was a result of a joint investigation by the Fraud Division of the California Department of Insurance, Criminal Investigation Division of the Employment Development Department, and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office.

The Contractors’ State Licensing Board and Department of Industrial Relations previously issued Viking Pavers, Inc. civil citations in 2017. Investigators from the Board and Marin County District Attorney’s Office discovered a subcontractor work crew operating for the company without a license and without worker compensation insurance under the name FF Services during a random job site inspection.

The Business and Professions Code does not permit construction companies to subcontract construction work unless the crews have their own license. This is because licensed subcontractors are required to have their own bond and workers compensation insurance to protect homeowners and employees.

The District Attorney’s Office learned of the fraud after employees of Viking Pavers were involved in a vehicle accident. The employees were never reported during premium audits as employees or subcontractors. These audits help confirm if an employer is following the law and ensure the appropriate classifications for their employees and subcontractors.

The investigation by the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office revealed that Viking Pavers continued to use FF Services as an unlicensed subcontractor after the civil citations and throughout 2018. The company re-routed the payments off the books to avoid detection during required audits. Forensic accountants traced payments to FF Services and other unlicensed and uninsured work crews, initially through a check cashing service in Richmond, California, and then through the bank accounts of a newly created a shell company. A subsequent search warrant at the business resulted in the seizure of over $80,000 in cash.

Milhomem will serve 364 days in county jail and is eligible to serve the sentence through electronic home detention. In addition, he will serve five years of formal probation. He is ordered to pay $1,109,603 to Markel Corporation for the underpayment of workers’ compensation insurance premium, $808,455.34 to the Employment Development Department for the underpayment of tax liability and $312,000 to Berkshire Hathaway for the underpayment of workers’ compensation insurance premium.

The Court ordered the seized cash forfeited as criminal restitution pursuant to the plea agreement.

On September 30, 2008, Patrick Sauceda was injured while working as a teacher for the Fresno Unified School District. He injured his head, left eye, and left knee following a physical attack by a student. The case was resolved by a Stipulations with Request for Award on December 13, 2010.

He then filed a Petition for Increased Benefits for Serious and Willful Misconduct of Employer. He alleges thad his industrial injury was the result of being assaulted by a special education student who had been previously identified and known to the School District to be a person with propensities for causing serious injury to others and who had stated on more than one occasion that he intended to kill or cause serious injury to Mr. Sauceda.

He claimed that the special education program manager, Nancy Miser, “was advised that a specific student in applicant’s classroom had a prior history of physically attacking two different teachers on separate occasions at a previous school [and] that this student had made specific threats that he intended to kill or seriously injury applicant,” but Ms. Miser refused a request to move the student to “another emotionally disturbed program on another campus,” stating that “applicant would have to find a way to deal with the student.”

The classroom had no radio or telephone for use in case of emergency.

The WCJ awarded Serious and Willful Misconduct benefits. Reconsideration was denied in the split panel decision of Sauceda v Fresno Unified School District.

Labor Code section 4553, a finding of liability is appropriate where the employer 1) knew of the dangerous condition; 2) knew that the probable consequences of the continuance of that condition would involve serious injury to an employee; and 3) deliberately failed to take corrective action.

“Here, it is undisputed that defendant knew of the dangerous condition. Defendant has admitted to knowing that the student assailant had a prior history of physically attacking two different teachers on separate occasions at a previous school and that this student had made specific threats that he intended to kill or seriously injury applicant.”

Applicant has amply shown that defendant deliberately failed to take corrective action. Defendant has made no attempt to deny that, when presented with the evidence from the student assailant’s file, the administrative team at applicant’s place of work declined to take any action to remove the student assailant from applicant’s classroom.

San Diego-based clinical laboratory Progenity, Inc. admitted that it submitted fraudulent bills to TRICARE, the Department of Defense health care benefit program that covers military service members and their dependents, and to the Federal Health Care Employee Benefits Program (FEHBP), for clinical tests that it knew were not covered or properly payable by either program.

In addition, Progenity, formerly known as Ascendant MDx, Inc., and previously headquartered in Carlsbad, California, admitted that it offered improper incentives to patients and doctors to use its laboratory services.

To account for its fraud, Progenity has agreed to pay a total of $49 million in civil settlements in federal courts in the Southern District of California (SDCA) and the Southern District of New York (SDNY), as well as to multiple states.

Progenity offered noninvasive prenatal testing (“NIPT”) to pregnant women. NIPT refers to a category of genetic tests that screen for fetal chromosomal abnormalities, through analysis of fetal DNA present in a pregnant woman’s blood.

This form of genetic testing, however, did not have FDA approval and was considered by TRICARE as a “laboratory-developed test.” As a result, TRICARE did not cover NIPT tests for its beneficiaries.

Therefore, in order to get reimbursed by TRICARE, Progenity falsely and fraudulently used a medical billing code that TRICARE covered, but that Progenity knew did not accurately reflect that the NIPT test.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for SDCA launched both a criminal probe into Progenity’s fraudulent billing practices and a civil investigation of the false claims Progenity had submitted to TRICARE and the FEHBP. Separately, SDNY initiated its own investigation into misconduct by Progenity relating to the improper incentives provided to patients and doctors to use its laboratory services. SDNY also coordinated with multiple state Attorneys General to investigate Progenity’s miscoding of NIPT to Medicaid programs in New York and several other states.

Progenity’s settlement agreement requires the company to pay $16.4 million to settle the SDCA civil matter, $19,449,316 to settle the SDNY civil matter, and $13,150,684 to settle the state civil allegations.

The civil settlements were based on an ability-to-pay, payment-over-time basis, following an analysis of financial condition submissions made by Progenity. In light of Progenity’s remedial efforts, cooperation with the investigation, and payment of restitution to TRICARE and the FEHBP, the criminal investigation was resolved via a non-prosecution agreement, requiring that Progenity admit its misconduct and be subject to additional terms and conditions for up to a 24-month period.

In an opinion out of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Osterbye v. United States, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116591 , the Court denied Defendant Selective Insurance’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s suit and allegations that Defendant failed to reimburse Medicare for Osterbye’s medical expenses under the Medicare Secondary Payer Act (MSP) private cause of action pursuant to 42 USC § 1395y(b)(3)(A).

Plaintiffs’ decedent, Anna May Osterbye, a Medicare beneficiary, was injured in a fire at her home allegedly caused by the negligence of a plumbing contractor, insured by the Defendant. Osterbye.

The claim resulted in a settlement in the amount of $740,000 including $13,562.90 that Medicare estimated for reimbursement of conditional payments. On April 29, 2013, the Plaintiffs executed a Release.

After Plaintiffs reimbursed $13,562.90 to Medicare, Medicare issued a final demand letter for an additional amount of $118,071.28 on June 4, 2013. The Plaintiffs then proceeded to exhaust administrative appeals with Medicare. On June 26, 2019, the Medicare Appeals council dismissed Plaintiffs’ request for review.

On August 28, 2019, Plaintiffs elevated the dispute to the United States District Court. Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss asserted two main arguments 1) The statute of limitations time-bars Plaintiff’s MSP claim and 2) Dismissal is appropriate based upon the settlement agreement and release.

With respect to the statute of limitations defense, administrative remedies were not exhausted until June 26, 2019- over 6 years after the settlement and release were executed. Plaintiffs were unable to seek judicial review on their MSP claim until all administrative remedies were exhausted. It was not apparent on the face of Plaintiffs’ Complaint that Plaintiffs’ MSP private cause of action is time-barred and denied the Motion to dismiss on the statute of limitations defense.

Defendant argued that the Court should dismiss Plaintiff’s claims by enforcing the Release Plaintiffs executed on April 29, 2013. The Court ultimately determined that whether the Plaintiffs’ Release should be nullified based on mutual mistake turns on a factual inquiry that was better left for a later time.

The ultimate outcome of this case is yet to be determined; however, there are several clear warning signals and reminders found within this case. Relying on an initial Conditional Payment Letter, and not a Final Demand amount can leave a primary payer open to significant exposure. Understanding the Conditional Payment Recovery process also includes understanding the inner workings of the Medicare Administrative Appeals process, and the associated delay.