Healthcare workers make up majority of COVID-19 workers’ comp claims in Whatcom, Skagit
Nearly 85% of workers’ compensation claims related to COVID-19 filed from Whatcom and Skagit counties were from healthcare workers, according to Washington State Department of Labor and Industries data requested by The Bellingham Herald.
The state agency began taking COVID-19-related claims on March 1, according to Tim Church, a spokesperson for L&I. Since then, 1,074 total claims were filed statewide by May 20, and 931 of them were accepted, according to the data.
An accepted claim means it meets the criteria for a claim and some type of assistance will be provided, Church said. An undetermined claim is a claim that was recently filed and has not yet been accepted or denied. A denied claim does not meet the criteria for a claim, Church said.
Of the 1,074 COVID-19-related claims filed, 35 have been denied, the data shows.
Just because a person files a COVID-19-related claim does not mean that they tested positive for the new coronavirus, Church said, saying that some claims are related to quarantined workers or work-related exposures to the respiratory illness.
All workers from Whatcom and Skagit counties filed 26 COVID-19-related claims since March 1, making up roughly 2.4% of the statewide total, according to the data. Of the 26 claims, 22 were filed from healthcare workers, Church said. Because workers’ compensation claims are considered healthcare information, data specific to just Whatcom or Skagit county can’t be released as some people may start to become identifiable, Church said.
A breakdown of how many of the 26 claims were accepted was also not available, Church said.
Of the 26 total claims, 17 were for people who tested positive for the coronavirus, he said. All but two were healthcare workers, Church said.
Since the pandemic began, 56 healthcare workers in Whatcom County have tested positive for the coronavirus, The Herald previously reported. More than half of the workers were associated with skilled nursing or long-term care facilities.
Of the total accepted COVID-19-related workers’ compensation claims filed across the state, just under 40% were filed by workers associated with nursing homes, the L&I data shows.
As of May 20, the state has paid $737,589 on COVID-19-related workers’ compensation claims, the data shows. The state agency also estimates that it will pay more than $3.7 million once all the current coronavirus-related claims are completed and closed. Church said that figure will change, as it’s a long-term estimate.
Church said that overall, L&I is seeing lower numbers of claims, likely because many people are not working. While a total number of claims was not readily available, Church said L&I accepts about 95,000 claims a year.
