Monopolistic North Dakota Takes A Third Look At Its Workers Compensation Program

I used to post often about the plight of North Dakota's Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI). The WSI is responsible for the administration of North Dakota's monopolistic Workers Comp program. The WSI has had many trials and tribulations as one of the last remaining monopolistic programs in the country.

Monopolistic Workers Comp programs are ran by the state. They do not allow any sort of competition from the insurance markets whatsoever. I recently came across an article where an unnamed third consultant was going to examine whether or not there were inappropriate denials where benefits should have been paid to the injured workers.

The first consultant, Marsh, said there were 16 files that indicated benefits should have been paid to the injured workers. This was part of a much larger file review. The claims were instead denied and defended to pay no benefits. A second audit was performed by Connolly and Associates. They found no wrongdoing.

Why is there actually a need for a third audit? Marsh had said out of a group of files some of those should have had benefits paid and then Connolly found nothing wrong. Why go to the expense of having a third review company look at the files? Nothing is going to change the numbers.

In the file reviews that we have performed, we have found files where benefits should have been paid. However, that was OUR OPINION. We were not there to handle the files. The TPA or carrier took corrective action and that was the end of it.