By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Massena Memorial Hospital’s CEO says he will call on their workers compensation carrier to help them reduce workplace incidents leading to claims, after the county announced plans to move to a risk-based funding system for the insurance plan.

“We are going to be asking for the workers compensation carrier to help us reduce our incidents. If we’re going to pay a premium we’re going to get service, not somebody who processes claims and says ‘you’re doing a bad job,’” MMH CEO Robert Wolleben said at the Monday Board of Managers meeting.

County legislators recently voted to modify the Workers’ Compensation insurance contribution formula to a risk-and-use-based system, resulting in massive savings for many municipalities, but a 267 percent increase for the Town of Massena.

Data from St. Lawrence County shows the hospital – which is in the process of privatizing and will soon no longer be operated by the town -- is responsible for nearly 97 percent of the town’s open claims.

This year, the town has had 16 Workers’ Compensation claims, 15 of which are from MMH. The county is projecting that number to reach 29 total claims by the end of the year, with 27 of them coming from the hospital.

According to data provided by the county, which serves as administrator for the program, new claims from the hospital have grown from 70 percent of the town’s total share in 2014 to 93 percent in 2017, while the other town entities covered under the program have reduced their share from 30 percent down to about 7 percent.

Currently, MMH has 32 open claims totaling $5,202,581.42. The total number of open claims for the entire town is 33, with costs estimated at $5,452,282.99. The other Massena departments covered under the compensation insurance program are the electric department, highway department and library.

Of the hospital’s 15 open claims, MMH officials at the meeting said five or six of them are what Wolleben called “medical only,” meaning they were treated and able to return to work.

“It’s well known that hospitals are places where there are plenty of opportunities, despite all the protections we provide, for employees to become injured. We have a lot of claims that are what I call medical only … goes to the emergency room, is seen by doctor, there’s a bill and it’s called medical only and it’s processed through the workers compensation carrier,” he said.

Wolleben defended their workers comp claims and believes they are actually doing better than similar healthcare entities.

“Comparing us to an office setting is not a fair comparison. Compare our last time work injuries to other hospitals of similar size and our experience is very low,” he said.

More information about the proposed changes to the workers comp claims, and other Massena officials’ reactions to it, are here.