Uniformed Municipal Employees Involved in the September 11th Recovery Effort Access to Medical Care
September 14, 2006
Thomas Eppinger, President
My name is Thomas Eppinger and I am the President of the Uniformed EMS Officers Union. I am joined today by Marianne Pizzitola, the Disability Pension and Benefits coordinator for the Union.
First, I want to thank Councilmember Addabbo, Speaker Quinn and the members of the City Council and the Civil Service & Labor Committee for holding this hearing today. This is a topic that is of vital importance to the members of my union. The issues that will be heard today are issues that we have been fighting for since our members have become ill. I also want to acknowledge the other Union leaders in the room who have been working so diligently to shed light on the 9/11 health issues facing their members.
Local 3621 represents over four hundred Lieutenants and Captains that are the front line leadership for FDNY EMS. Our members responded to the World Trade Center attack on 9/11 and did not leave until the last piece of steel was removed. Five years later, my members are paying for their unselfish dedication, patriotism and commitment. Many of them are very ill and feel like they have been forgotten.
Rather than go into detail about what our members health issues are-I think we are all I agreement that Ground Zero workers are facing considerable illnesses as a result of their work on Ground Zero-I thought the most productive use of my testimony today would be to identify and provide background for four key issues we need your help on-there are many others-followed by a suggested resolution to these issues.
These key issues all relate to a mounting bureaucracy that my members must navigate to secure the benefits they so rightfully earned. The agencies that I specifically want to focus on today are FDNY, the NYC Law Department and the NYC Employees Retirement System (NYCERS).
Issue #1: FDNY continues to deny member contractual Line of Duty Benefits
It has been our experience that the FDNY is recommending to controvert 9/11 cases for Workers' Compensation for EMS workers. When the NYC Law Department adopts a recommendation as their own, the FDNY continues to deny that member contractual Line of Duty benefits and pay thus forcing that member to use banked sick or vacation time, if they had any. If not, they were placed off payroll, and lost their health insurance.
Suggested Resolution: The city should provide for unlimited sick leave for EMS workers as it does for other uniformed workers, or require FDNY to advise the worker that it is suggesting to controvert the case and why.
Issue #2: Exceedingly long time period for Workers' Compensation hearings
In many cases, the time period to schedule a Workers' Compensation hearing with the NYC Law Department can be 2-3 months with the decision taking upwards of a year. This results in the worker being without pay and benefits for long—sometimes fatal—periods of time. To make matters worse, the FDNY has terminated some of these cases under Section 71 of the Civil Service Law. Most claims were denied because the workers became ill two years after 9/11 and the Law Department would send a notice to the worker stating, "No industrial accident, No Occupational Disease, no notice, no medical evidence of causal relationship, exceeded 2 year statute of limitation, Accident did not arise out of or in the course of employment." It is outright egregious on every level that the NYC Law Department sends a statement like this to a WTC Rescuer.
Suggested Resolution: The City Council should consider legislation that mandates that the Law Department expeditious schedule and make decisions on 9/11 health cases or remands 9/11 cases back to another hearing within two weeks. If the City is not prepared, it should lose their opportunity to request a continuance or adjourn for another day. Enough time has been wasted and workers should not experience any further delay in their care. Time frames should be implemented and must be followed.
Issue #3: NYCERS decisions inconsistent with employing agency
Our members continually run into instances where the FDNY has found them to be disabled while the NYCERS medical board would find them not disabled preventing them from securing Line of Duty Disability retirement benefits. FDNY EMS members are not city workers that can sit in an office all day. Our members go into buildings that are not the cleanest environments, to fires where there is smoke, fumes, chemicals, and to assignments where there are respiratory irritants to workers whose already compromised respiratory systems make just breathing a challenge.
Suggested Resolution: Policy should be enacted that (1) forces the city to commit to a criterion for disability and (2) forces NYCERS to accept the decision when Workers Comp, Social Security or the employing agency finds the member disabled in a timely fashion. I also recommend that doctors that sit on the NYCERS medical boards have term limits and are limited as to the number of board they can serve on. We have seen many of the same doctors at NYCERS also serve on other boards, and some are even retirees from city agencies.
Issue #4: Difficulty in receiving approval for payment of health benefits by the NYC Law Department
While the NYC Law Department acts as an insurance carrier for most City Workers, recent history has shown that they often deviate from State Workers Comp Law by ignoring a doctors' request for treatment, ignoring bills—in some cases for years—to the point that the doctor would advise my members that they could no longer treat them because they are not getting paid. My office has to assist the doctors in complaining to the State to force the Law Department to pay for bills they already authorized treatment for. What complicates this is that the State advises us that they have no authority over the operations of the Law Department, only the Mayor does.The State Insurance Department has no oversight either, as the City is self insured.
Also, my members find the number of doctors authorized as Worker Comp Physicians to treat them in short supply, especially in the area of mental health providers, oncologists, internist/nutritionists, and cardiologists. When reviewing the list on the State site, most refused to take on new patients, or would not take comp if the carrier was the NYC Law Department. Others preferred not to treat 9.11 workers.
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Often the Law Department would delay or refuse medication, or breathing diagnostic testing for months, and tried to force workers to use their in house Express Scripts Pharmacy or One Call Medical for radiology. The issue was the pharmacy could take 2-3 weeks to send medication and on a few occasions did not direct bill the Law Department, and instead billed the member's Union health plan. In addition, many doctors complain that One Call Medicals films are of poor quality.
Suggested Resolution: The City Council should consider legislation that can provide for oversight of the NYC Law Department for workers compensation benefits. For example, the Council might consider legislation to force the Law Department, as the City's Insurer, to follow the same rules as Insurance Companies and provide claimants with the proper recourse techniques.
To conclude, I want to commend the Mayor for releasing his series of 9/11 health initiatives last week. However, I feel strongly that the City Council must continue to work with the Administration to ensure that these policies are enforced and moved forward in an expeditious manner. Also, it is important to note that while we believe that the State's WTC Compensation legislation will fix some of these problems in the Workers' Comp arena, we still have concerns with the FDNY Workers Compensation Unit and with NYCERS commitment to protecting Ground Zero workers. Local 3621 intends to continue to pursue these policy changes with the State.
Again, on behalf of the members of the Uniformed EMS Officers Union, I cannot thank the City Council enough for your commitment to this issue. Marianne and I are happy to answer any questions you might have.
