A proposed federal rule change on how employers report on-the-job injuries and illness could dramatically expand reporting requirements for senior living providers.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed amendments to its occupational injury and illness recordkeeping regulation. In addition to requiring operators to provide an annual summary of work-related injuries and illnesses, the proposed rule would require employers in certain high-hazard industries to electronically submit additional information from employer logs and incident reports.
Among the affected employers are assisted living and other residential care facilities, continuing care retirement communities and skilled nursing facilities. If adopted, the reporting requirement rule would allow OSHA to keep closer tabs on illness and injuries in the workplace as well as make the information publicly available.
Under the current rule, small and large senior living and skilled nursing operators are required to electronically submit their OSHA Form 300A annual summary of all work-related injuries and illnesses recorded on their OSHA 300 logs.
Under the proposed reporting requirement rule, in addition to submitting that annual summary, all senior living and skilled nursing operators with 20 or more employees would have to electronically submit their OSHA 300 logs and every OSHA Form 301 for each recordable injury or illness entered on the logs, according to Micah Dickie, an Atlanta-based attorney with Fisher & Phillips LLP’s Workplace Safety and Catastrophe Management Practice Group.
Form 301 includes personal employee information, detailed information on where and how the injury or illness occurred, and information on the treating healthcare professional.
“Employers will have to submit these forms each year,” Dickie told McKnight’s. “So the proposed rule is a huge expansion of what employers must send to OSHA and will allow OSHA to obtain — and then publish to third parties — the specific injury and illness records that each senior living and skilled nursing operator keeps at their worksites.”
Dickie said the proposed rule will “expose these employers to scrutiny by plaintiffs’ attorneys, unions and news outlets — potentially leading to unfair mischaracterization of an employer’s safety and health policies.”
The rule change, according to OSHA, will improve its ability to identify high-risk workplaces and target compliance assistance and enforcement efforts, allow employers to compare injury and illness data with similar businesses, and improve occupational safety and health research.
Specific changes would do the following:
- Require establishments with 100 or more employees in certain high-hazard industries to electronically submit information annually from OSHA forms 300, 301 and 300A.
- Update the classification system used to determine industries covered by the electronic submission requirement.
- Remove the requirement for employers outside of those designated industries with 250 or more employees from annual submission requirements of Form 300A.
- Require the company name on electronic submissions.
The new proposal maintains existing requirements for employers with 20 to 99 employees, which need only submit annual summaries of injury and illness information.
OSHA launched its electronic injury and illness reporting system for Form 300A in August 2017, with a December 2017 deadline for reporting. Under the final rule announced in May 2016, “high hazard” industries with 250 or more employees were required to submit to OSHA injury and illness information on Forms 300, 300A and 301. Some businesses with 20 to 249 employees — including community care facilities for the elderly, other residential care facilities and nursing care facilities — were required to submit information from Form 300A only.
The proposed rule was published March 30 in the Federal Register. Comments on the proposal are due by May 31.
