Tag: 2021 News

The Department of Industrial Relations and its California Labor Commissioner’s Office has launched a web-based tool in English and Spanish that offers key information on the new 2021 COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave law, Senate Bill No. 95, signed by Governor Newsom on March 19.

“The 2021 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave law provides workers up to 80 hours of paid sick leave if they or a family member are unable to work or telework due to COVID-19, including for vaccine-related reasons,” said Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower. “We designed this tool so workers and their employers can get information on workers’ paid sick leave options.”

The law, which went into effect on March 29 and is retroactive to January 1, 2021, requires that California workers are provided up to two weeks of supplemental paid sick leave if they are affected by COVID-19. Among the key updates in the new legislation, leave time now also applies to attending a COVID-19 vaccine appointment and recovering from symptoms related to the vaccine. The new law is in effect until September 30, 2021. Small businesses employing 25 or fewer workers are exempt from the law but may offer supplemental paid sick leave and receive a federal tax credit, if eligible.

The navigator tool, available in English and Spanish, helps workers and employers confirm if they are eligible for COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave by answering short simple questions on the impact COVID-19 is having on an employee’s ability to work. Workers and employers need not provide a name or other personal details to determine eligibility. In addition, Supplemental Paid Sick Leave FAQs are posted online in English and Spanish.

In the FAQs, workers can find information on:

– – Required circumstances for taking COVID-19 leave
– – How to request paid sick leave from your employer
– – Where to file a claim if you were not paid for leave
– – What rights you have as a covered employee

Employers can find information on:

– – When must employers pay COVID-19 sick leave
– – Calculating leave time for full-time and part-time employees
– – Requirements for informing employees about the new law
– – How to calculate and list paid leave on pay stubs

The law also includes unique provisions for firefighters. The law defines what constitutes an “active” firefighter and it identifies the member firefighter agencies covered under SB 95.

Employees may also be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits if they believe their COVID-19 illness is work-related. In that instance, workers should tell their employers about their work-related illness as soon as possible and file a workers’ compensation claim, which pays for medical treatment and partial wages during recovery. For support, please contact the Division of Workers’ Compensation’s Information and Assistance Unit or call 1- 909-383-4341.

Workers whose employers refuse to provide paid sick leave or COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave as required by law, or prevent workers from accessing paid sick hours, are encouraged to call the Labor Commissioner’s Office at 833-LCO-INFO (833-526-4636) to file a wage claim.

The Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, or the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, combats wage theft and unfair competition by investigating allegations of illegal and unfair business practices. Californians can follow the Labor Commissioner on Facebook and Twitter.

The FDA has cleared two Brainlab AG surgical robots: the Loop-X Mobile Imaging Robot and the Cirq Robotic Alignment Module, a robotic surgical system for spine procedures. The clearances follow CE mark approvals last summer.

Claiming the “first fully robotic intraoperative imaging device on the market,” the company said the Loop-X’s independently moving imaging source and detector panels, “enable flexible patient positioning and non-isocentric imaging which reduces the amount of radiation exposure and increases the variety of indications which can be treated.” The mobile imaging robot can be controlled wirelessly with a touchscreen tablet.

The Cirq Robotic Alignment Module, according to December 2020 FDA clearance documents, is intended to be an intraoperative image guided localization system “to support the surgeon to achieve pre-planned trajectories with surgical instruments.” The indications for use of the CIRQ module for spinal use “is the treatment of diseases where the placement of spinal screws is indicated.”

The company says the module is capable of “fine tuning the alignment to a pre-planned trajectory and freeing up surgeons’ hands, enabling them to focus on the patient’s anatomy.” The module has already been used by surgeons at Royal London Hospital for cases ranging from lumbar fusions to complex deformity and cervical fractures.

According to the FDA documents, the module is connected to the Surgical BaseSystem from Germany-based Medineering GmbH and aligns instruments to a pre-planned trajectory during surgical procedures using the Cirq Robotic Application Software together with the Brainlab IGS Spinal software applications.

Infrared passive marker-based tracking provided by the optical tracking camera unit of the navigation platform is used to determine the instrument’s and patient’s position. The relation between the patient and the reference attached to the patient is realized with a manual or automatic registration (manually or automatically).

The device is manually pre-aligned to the region of interest by opening the brakes of the Surgical Base System using its “7 degrees of freedom.” The tracking information is used to automatically fine align a tracked guide attached to the Cirq Robotic Alignment Module to “achieve a pre-planned trajectory” controlled by the application software. After finishing the alignment, the device remains in this position and the surgeon “can use surgical instruments through the provided guide to perform the surgical steps intended without losing the trajectory.”

Brainlab was founded in 1989, employs more than 1,500 people in 20 offices and is present in over 5,600 hospitals in 116 countries.

Last month, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing provided guidance that gave California employers the green light to make vaccinations a mandatory requirement for return to work, with some exceptions.

The next step is to see what employers will follow this guidance and require vaccinations for return to work.

For more than a year, state university campuses across California have been largely empty and students and professors have been forced to adapt to an online college experience. But the CSU and UC systems have their eyes set on reopening this fall, announcing Thursday they will require Covid-19 vaccines for students and faculty in order to return to campus.

The California State University and the University of California’s vaccination requirements affect more than a million students and faculty across the Golden State.

While ideally the requirement would begin with the fall 2021 term, students and faculty won’t be required to get the jab until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally approves one or more of the vaccines on the market for general use. The FDA issued emergency-use authorization for the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines this past December, but the vaccines could receive full approval later this year. Use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been paused pending investigation over reports of rare blood clots.

Immunization requirements are nothing new for California colleges, but students and faculty who return to school in the fall will be in classrooms, libraries, gyms and labs for the first time in a world with Covid-19.

CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro called the approach “the most comprehensive and consequential university plan for Covid-19 vaccines in the country.”

UC President Michael Drake, a medical doctor, said in a statement, “Receiving a vaccine for the virus that causes Covid-19 is a key step people can take to protect themselves, their friends and family, and our campus communities while helping bring the pandemic to an end.”

While terms of the university system vaccine plan have yet to be finalized, officials announced the plan now to give students, faculty and staff time to prepare. Students will need to update their vaccination records or provide an approved exception or medical exemption before they enroll for their fall semester. University officials say if students are unable to find a vaccination provider on their own, their student health centers might be able to help.

The CSU system boasts over 485,000 students across 20 campuses. The UC system has 10 campuses with over 280,000 students and roughly 227,000 faculty and staff.

News of the university vaccine plan comes as California has one of the lowest case rates in the country.

As of Thursday, roughly 43% of all Californians 16 years and older have received at least one vaccine dose.

Mitchell International, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, California, delivers smart technology solutions that simplify and accelerate claims handling and repair processes, driving more accurate, consistent and cost-effective resolutions.

The company announced the results of a survey of workers’ compensation professionals in the U.S., revealing how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced technology usage in the industry.

The survey results show that the industry has rapidly increased its technology adoption in the last year, with more than 50% of respondents saying they adopted telemedicine during the pandemic. Forty percent of participants said changes and pressures related to the COVID-19 pandemic are the main driving factors for the increased pace of technology adoption in the industry today.

Looking ahead, the majority of respondents overwhelmingly believe that telemedicine (35%) and predictive analytics (35%) are the technologies that will have the biggest impact on the industry within the next 5-10 years, followed next by mobile coming in at a distant third place (8.5%). Respondents believe the most valuable applications of telemedicine – driven largely by a rising need for remote healthcare – will be for provider visits (54%). They also reported that they foresee predictive analytics being used best for claim triage, severity or reserving (35%).

In a similar survey conducted by Mitchell in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic began, respondents foresaw telemedicine as having the most significant influence on the industry (32%), but reported artificial intelligence (30%) as the second potential most impactful technology and ranked predictive analytics (20%) in third place.

“The workers’ compensation industry has greatly benefitted from technology innovation in recent years, but the need to enable the continuity of care has brought explosive growth in new technology adoption as a result of COVID-19,” said Shahin Hatamian, senior vice president of product management at Mitchell. “The past year has only reinforced the trends our annual surveys have tracked in recent years, highlighting the rising importance of technologies that can automate manual processes and enable faster and smarter decision making.”

Mitchell’s survey also uncovered the biggest claims challenges experienced by workers’ compensation industry professionals. Almost one-quarter (22%) of participants ranked adapting to challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic as the top obstacle their organization is facing today, followed by workflow efficiency (19%) and cost pressures (18%). Other hurdles reported include return-to-work time, employee turnover, IT budget, keeping up with regulatory changes, and pharmaceutical management.

“As companies continue to focus on stabilizing and improving their businesses in the coming years, they will be seeking workflow efficiencies and determining ways to lower costs, to help injured employees return to the workforce even quicker,” said Hatamian. “We foresee a continued focus on automation, analytics and workflows to maximize care and improve outcomes.”

Mitchell surveyed nearly 100 workers’ compensation professionals at a range of companies, including insurance carriers, third-party administrators, public entities, brokers, and managed care and risk management organizations.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA) was formed on January 1, 2019, following the merger of the American Insurance Association (AIA) and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI). Together these organizations trace their history back to the founding of the National Board of Fire Underwriters in 1866.

APCIA members represent all sizes, structures, and regions – protecting families, communities, and businesses in the U.S. and across the globe.

H.R. 1996, the SAFE Banking Act generally prohibits a federal banking regulator from penalizing a depository institution for providing banking services to a legitimate cannabis-related business. Prohibited penalties include terminating or limiting the deposit insurance or share insurance of a depository institution solely because the institution provides financial services to a legitimate cannabis-related business and prohibiting or otherwise discouraging a depository institution from offering financial services to such a business.

The Association released the following statement commending the House of Representatives for passing H.R. 1996, the SAFE Banking Act.

The legislation will prevent federal prosecution of and civil liability for insurance agents, brokers, and carriers, as well as their officers, directors, or employees when engaging in the business of insurance in states that have legalized cannabis in some form.

The following statement may be attributed to Nat Wienecke, APCIA’s senior vice president of federal government relations:

“APCIA commends the House for providing greater certainty surrounding the insurance marketplace for cannabis-related legal businesses and consumers adhering to state laws. This legislation addresses the legal uncertainty created by the dueling state and federal treatment of cannabis. While marijuana is illegal under the federal law, thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have legalized some form of marijuana.”

“We applaud Representatives Perlmutter, Stivers, Velazquez, and Davidson for their steadfast leadership. We encourage the Senate to take up and pass the SAFE Banking Act, as soon as possible.“

The Bill passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. It now moves to the Senate for its consideration