Marylanders who are injured on the job wait an average of seven months to receive checks to cover their lost wages -- 28 weeks longer than state law allows -- a study has found.
But state officials say they haven't fined insurance companies for the illegal delays because much of the slowdown is caused by a bureaucratic tangle within the state Workers Compensation Commission.
Commission Chairman Charles Krysiak said he hadn't received many complaints about late checks and said he was surprised to learn of the long payment delays.
The results were disclosed in a report this month from the National Council on Compensation Insurance, an industry trade group.
Because of a balky new computer system and staff shortages, commission workers take from 14 to 20 days to notify insurers of a worker's claim, Mr. Krysiak said. That gives insurers very little time to investigate a claim and decide whether to pay or contest it within the 21-day deadline, he said.
He said he called in computer consultants last week to speed up notifications of insurers, but said he didn't know when the delays would be reduced.
"We want to get money in the hands of the workers quickly," he said. In the meantime, "it's going to be tough" for injured workers still waiting for delayed checks, Mr. Krysiak said.
"They'll have to live off their savings," Mr. Krysiak said.
Injured workers and their families say the commissioners should have known about slow payments, however, and that the delays are causing hardship and heartache.
Nancy Boyle said that when her husband, Tom, was disabled by a back injury on the job in the summer of 1991, she figured it would take "a week or two, maybe a month," before they started receiving workers compensation.
But the months dragged on, and the bills piled up, forcing the Boyles to mortgage their Baltimore home to pay for the groceries and electricity, and sending Mr. Boyle into depression.
She said the Workers Compensation Commission told her that such delays are common and that she should be patient.
The couple finally received their first check just before Christmas 1991, five months after filing a claim. But Mrs. Boyle said the
money came too late to revive her family's finances or her husband's spirit.
The accident had ruined his career as a repairman for an apartment complex, and the delay sent the family deep into debt.
"He's very depressed," she said.
And Mrs. Boyle is very angry: "It is a sick system."
Despite stories like the Boyles', the study of 1,018 Maryland cases closed between 1989 and 1993, showed that the commission has had some success in bringing efficiency to the system:
* Workers compensation costs in Maryland rose an average of 9 percent a year between 1982 and 1991, significantly less than the national average increase of 12.3 percent a year.
* Although the average payment delay grew slightly between 1989 and 1993, the median delay dropped significantly. Half of the surveyed injured workers received a compensation payment within 44 days last year, compared to 60 days in 1989. That's still at least twice as long as the median delays in the 12 other states the NCCI has studied so far, though.
* The commission has slashed its backlog from about 15,000 cases in 1993 to about 5,000 cases this year.
Conversely, the study also found warning signals that the state's workers compensation system is getting more costly and more complicated:
* The length of time injured workers stay out on total disability has nearly doubled, to 40 weeks, since 1989.
* The number of workers receiving surgery for their injuries has jumped by 50 percent. And surgery cases cost an average of $12,735, three times that of cases not involving surgery.
* An unusually high percentage of Maryland's injured workers -- 91 percent -- hire attorneys to help them maneuver through the system. While often protecting workers' rights, the litigation raises costs. Cases in which the workers hired attorneys cost 24 percent more than those in which workers didn't have legal representation.
* The 1987 state reform that set three levels of payment for those with permanent partial disabilities appears to have kept costs down, but is contributing to an increase in litigation over disability ratings. Since a 1 percentage-point difference in a disability rating can mean several thousand dollars in payments, by bumping a worker into the next level, many workers and insurers are fighting hard over ratings.
Representatives of employers said last week that while the study contained some warning signs, it showed the system was working comparatively well.
Christopher Costello, vice president of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, said the report shows that a 1987 legislative reform package succeeded at capping cost increases while ensuring that more seriously injured workers received more compensation.
"I looked at the report, and I saw pretty positive" conclusions, he said.
Mr. Costello, who recently hurt his back at work and filed a workers compensation claim, said that he "had to go through a lot of waiting" to get his case settled.
But, he said, "This is not a crisis-type situation" and can be fixed with voluntary changes by employers.
His group is urging employers to push for quick settlements of compensation claims because this and other studies have shown that workers paid quickly are less likely to hire attorneys and quicker to return to work.
"Your costs are much lower, and mentally, it is much better for the worker," he said.