HB 30-WORKERS' COMP: DEATH; PERM PARTIAL IMPAIR  4:05:25 PM CO-CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ announced that the first order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 30, "An Act relating to notice of workers' compensation death benefits; relating to the payment of workers' compensation benefits in the case of permanent partial impairment; relating to the payment of workers' compensation death benefits; and providing for an effective date." 4:05:57 PM CHARLES COLLINS, Director, Division of Workers' Compensation, Department of Labor and Workforce Development (DLWD), started by congratulating the board for being able to hold the cost of premiums down, and reminded the committee that 2021 will be the eighth year in a row that has seen a reduction in premiums to employers. He added that that statistic comes with a caveat because some things in workers' compensation haven't been adjusted for many years. He stated that workers' compensation is the only path that an injured worker has to compensation and repairment after a workplace injury. Since 1959, when the [workers' compensation] act was initially implemented, there have been a number of updates, with the last major update occurring in 2005. MR. COLLINS shared that in Alaska, an employer has three days to inform the Division of Workers' Compensation of an injury that has occurred on the job. Most of the time, he continued, the division gets a report of injury directly from the employer but occasionally a medical provider supplies the report. If the process goes smoothly, the injured employee will get rehabilitated and return to the same job. He explained that "90-plus percent" of injuries follow that procedure. He said that occasionally, an employer wants to follow a different path to rehabilitation than the employee, which is the type of case that is brought before the board, but he shared that this situation is rare, consisting of "six or seven hundred a year" compared to 17,000 claims. He noted that there is a team of lawyers and employee representatives that support this process. He said that under Alaska workers' compensation law, the employee is only required to pay for the first $300 consultation. If the employee prevails in the case, the legal counsel gets paid through the [Workers' Compensation] Act and by the employer, and the employee does not have to take on the burden of that cost. 4:10:37 PM CO-CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ invited questions from the committee. 4:10:56 PM CO-CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ opened public testimony on HB 30. After ascertaining that there was no one who wished to testify, she closed public testimony. 4:11:13 PM REPRESENTATIVE KAUFMAN directed attention to Section 2 of the Sectional Analysis, which read as follows [original punctuation provided]: Section 2: Increases the base amount in AS 23.30.190(a), used to calculated [sic] the compensation for permanent partial impairment, from $177,000 (2000 amount) to $273,000 to account for inflation and bring Alaska's compensation rate up to the national average. REPRESENTATIVE KAUFMAN asked if Alaska was at the national average in the year 2000. MR. COLLINS responded that in 2000, Alaska's baseline amount of $177,000 was at the median rather than the average. In 2000, the baseline was changed from $135,000 to $177,000 in an effort to bring Alaska closer to the national standards. He explained that due to inflation, Alaska now needs to increase that number again to align itself more closely to the national standards, as Representative Josephson proposed in HB 30. REPRESENTATIVE KAUFMAN commented that he finds this issue complicated and that there is a lot of information to look through. MR. COLLINS replied that it takes a doctor's rating to receive a whole body impairment percentage. The baseline of $177,000 is used as a starting point to calculate compensation. He explained that some states, such as Washington, break the compensation out by injured body part instead of considering the whole body. The doctors determine the percentage using the American Medical Association (AMA) guide and then determine the compensation amount starting from the $177,000 baseline, which he reiterated has not been updated in 21 years. 4:15:22 PM CO-CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ invited questions from the committee. 4:15:45 PM CO-CHAIR FIELDS moved to report HB 30 out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. There being no objection, HB 30 was reported from the House Labor and Commerce Standing Committee.