Lawyer: State should compensate N.C. workers for comp check delay
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- For the second time this summer, an injured N.C. Department of Public Instruction employee tells Eyewitness News his workers' compensation check was nearly a month late. Another employee said her medical providers aren't getting reimbursed on time.
The I-Team first reported the delays in July when Roderick Stocks, a former Western Harnett High School teacher injured on the job in 2002, went nearly a month without compensation from the state.
Read more: I-Team: North Carolina state employees not getting worker's comp checks
Last week, Roderick reached out to Eyewitness News once more saying his checks were again delayed.
DPI'S Chief of Insurance Eileen Townsend said Thursday while she regrets any payments that are still late getting to workers, DPI has made progress since the initial slowdown. On July 1, DPI switched its third party administrator from CorVel to Sedgwick. During the transition, Townsend said data fell through the cracks and at least 400 workers' comp checks went out nearly three weeks late.
The I-Team checked back with Sedgwick Thursday to see whether the company has experienced any other technical glitches since the initial data transfer.
Sedgwick spokesperson Lesley Gudehus responded in an email, saying:
"When Sedgwick was awarded this new business, all the data for some 3,000 indemnity claims had to be integrated into our computer system. The data integration process is, in fact, running smoothly, and overall, individuals are receiving their checks timely."
Ben Cochran of Hardison & Cochran represents more than a dozen injured DPI employees and is now fighting to get them more money in the form of a late payment penalty. He explained any benefits that are due and payable and aren't paid within 14 days, claimants are entitled to a 10-percent late payment penalty.
"They've learned to manage their lives around this income and when you take it away, they've got no fall back," he said.
Another DPI employee, Patti Griffin, an asst. principal with Cumberland County Schools who was first injured on the job five years ago, also went a month without a workers' comp check this summer. She tells Eyewitness News a new problem has surfaced; her medical providers aren't being reimbursed on time and are now having to push back her appointments.
"Your plan of care is in jeopardy of being stopped which will delay my recovery. It's scary because you want to get back to a normal life and you can't get back to a normal life," she said.
Cochran said he will be looking into that issue but for now, he's focused on getting his clients the money he says they're due.
"That's an issue that we are going to have to continue to kind of chase down the rabbit hole because these benefits were not paid in a timely manner."
Townsend said DPI has already countered one of Cochran's motions for a late payment penalty, saying while they got the check to that client 'by the skin of their nose,' they hadn't missed that 14-day deadline.
