Dallas firm to start handling Fort Worth workers’ comp claims

Dallas-based York Risk Services Group will take over handling the city of Fort Worth’s workers’ compensation claims beginning Nov. 1, pending City Council approval.

The company, a provider of insurance services including claims management and managed care, has managed workers’ comp claims for more than 5,800 public entities, including cities, county and states, according to its website.

The move comes after the city’s current provider, CorVel Corp., raised the ire of Mayor Betsy Price over its handling of a claim for an injured police officer. A subsequent audit found that city employees were dissatisfied with CorVel.

“This is certainly needed,” Price said. “We’ve identified some significant concerns here the last few months, and many of them that have been there sometime with our employees. Unfortunately, they felt like no one was listening.

“It took a bit of a tragedy for us to wake up and figure out how to solve this. We’re moving in the proper direction. Now we’ll see if York can deliver.”

Brian Dickerson, the city’s human resources director, said other organizational changes will also be made to improve services, including combining risk management and workers’ comp into one area and hiring an assistant human resources director to handle risk management.

A seven-member team of city employees will be established to work with York adjusters, who will be on site, he said.

“We want these adjusters to know and understand our employees. We want our employees to know and understand them,” Dickerson said. “Going forward, it’s going to be the measure of how much does this cost and how fast are we returning employees back to work. We are going to have better control. We’re going to refer our people to some of the best care that’s available.”

The City Council will consider the request to hire York at its Aug. 25 meeting.

Councilman Jungus Jordan thanked Price for leading the effort to improve employee concerns about workers’ comp.

“The metrics are a measurement, but the real measure is are we taking care of our employees,” Jordan said.

In March, York issued a news release touting its commitment to fighting workers’ compensation fraud and saying it returned $1.5 million to public entity clients in California in workers’ comp restitution.

This story was originally published August 18, 2015 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Dallas firm to start handling Fort Worth workers’ comp claims."