Hot Topic: Payroll Audit Process

Falls have accounted for 25% of the Iowa Municipalities Workers’ Compensation Association’s (IMWCA’s) losses over the last five years. What can you do to help ensure more employees go home safely?

Written safety programs are at the core of any successful safety program. However, they only keep people safe if they are good–useful, concise, up-to-date, and specific to the department.
Many programs are required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is probably why safety programs are sometimes referred to as OSHA programs. However, a written model program is much more than a compliance document.

In October, National Fire Prevention Month, take some time to learn more about fire extinguisher maintenance.

Understand the process of a claim, from injury to when it is assigned to an IMWCA claims examiner.

Every day across the country employees are injured when proper lockout/tagout (LOTO) procedures are not followed. Implementing and following LOTO procedures could prevent most of these crush injuries, electrocutions and fatalities. Check out the three components of a successful, effective LOTO program.

After the initial shock of a workplace injury, many people ask, “what next?!” The simple answer: an incident review.
A model Incident Review Form is available at www.imwca.org. The form includes a list of questions to help assess how to prevent a similar situation in the future. When filling out the incident review form, be honest. This is not a disciplinary document. The incident review is about improvement, not shame.

The Safety Study Grant and Safety Innovation Award programs began in Fiscal Year 2019-2020 to encourage innovative ideas for improving employees safety within the IMWCA membership and to share projects developed and implemented by members to reduce or eliminate significant safety exposures in the workplace.

Operating vehicles poses a significant risk to our employees, but there is a simple way to reduce their risk of serious injury and death.

The safety tool is surprisingly simple and readily available: wear a seatbelt.

Learn more about how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) intersects with workers’ compensation, especially as it relates to information shared by an employer with other employees.

IMWCA members often use seasonal employees to provide services. Check out this reminder with resources to help ensure seasonal employees have the same preparation and training as full-time staff.

IMWCA members can use Tracker, utilizing data from the Company Nurse first report of injury system, to maintain OSHA 300 logs and create the yearly OSHA 300a Report.

At the same time, IMWCA is preparing to renew workers’ compensation policies for members for the coming fiscal year, IMWCA  works with Information Providers Inc. (IPI) to audit this year’s policy. Learn more about the payroll audit process, which begins each May.

Do you know when to report a claim to IMWCA? Find out when you should report a workplace injury to Company Nurse, IMWCA’s claims reporting partner.

Learn more about the renewal process, including information about the payroll worksheet.

Do you and your employees have the new Globally Harmonized System pictograms memorized? After all, the new system’s consistent and easily understandable information about the chemical products isn’t useful if you can’t identify the hazards.

A recorded RTWNow resource training session that walks through the features of this service available to IMWCA members.