Begin by looking at everyone else who touches claims, says Laura Clifford, owner of California-based Employers Fraud Task Force.

In a recent interview, Clifford said less than 10% of the comp fraud her firm’s uncovered was committed by employees.

The other 90% was committed by everyone else (lawyers, adjusters, bill review companies, etc.).

First step to take

What can employers do? One tactic Clifford says cuts down on fraud: Sit down with workers with an explanation of the benefits (EOB) they’ve received and go over it with them.

Reason: If just one injured worker looked at his EOB and said, “I only went to the doctor twice, not five times — like it says here,” then the employer could look at that doctor and see what other patients the doc has seen.

A whopping 72% of workers age 60 or older are putting off retirement because they feel they can’t afford to retire, according to a new Harris Interactive/CareerBuilder study.

And it appears women are more likely to stay on the job than men — 76% of women said they plan to work longer because they can’t afford to retire, compared to 68% of men who said they’ll stay in the workforce.

Luckily for most (71%) of those who want to keep working, they enjoy their job and don’t want to leave.

Some other reasons older works say they want to stay on the job:

• To collect health insurance or other additional benefits they need (50%)
• They think retirement will be too boring (24%), and
• They enjoy feeling needed (15%).

The fact that the Ledbetter case involved a 20-year-long pay dispute has lead to the thinking that payroll and associated records have to be kept nearly forever. Of course it’s a good idea to keep comprehensive records, but –

• Pay records alone may not be the best defense against a bias claim, and
• Courts recognize that there’s a limit to the amount of recordkeeping companies can maintain, especially small companies.

So, what is the best defense against wage-bias claims? The attorneys at Fisher & Phillips recommend:

• Providing employees with a system to challenge wage decisions on the basis of discrimination. This will both help prevent discrimination as well as provide the employer with the ability to create a record at the time of the decision.
• Adding objective factors to the decisionmaking process that allow decisions to be defended. In other words, try to be sure that your process has defined measures — output, quality, etc. — for awarding pay raises and promotion. That’s better than just vaguely saying or writing, “You did a good job this year.” What’s a “good job”?
• Setting a baseline for all raises and requiring written documentation and review for any deviation from the baseline, up or down. If almost everyone gets, say, a 3% raise, what justifies some people getting more or less than that?
• Providing decisionmakers with forms that guide them in explaining their decisions. As much as possible, don’t leave it up to supervisors to be creative. Hand them the forms that meet your criteria.

Nothing will guarantee that your company will never be sued for wage discrimination. All you can do is set up the best system to prevent lawsuits and to defend yourself in case of a lawsuit.

The Department of Labor’s released new proposed regs on providing advice to participants in individual retirement plans.

The proposed investment advice rules are intended to make sure that workers receive unbiased advice about how to invest in 401(k)-type plans.

The DOL will be accepting comments on the regs until May 5, and the regs are expected to be effective 60 days after publication of the final rule.

Here’s a quick look at some of the key provisions.

According to the proposed rules, investment advice can be given under the Pension Protection Act’s statutory exemption from liability (which allows employers to hire outsiders to provide investment advice to plan participants), but only if the advice is provided in two ways:

• through a financial advisor who is compensated on a “level-fee” basis, or
• through the use of a computer model that is certified as unbiased.

Level fees

The financial services company has to charge a flat fee schedule — in other words, fees don’t change depending on what investment options participants choose.

Computer models

If the rules are adopted, computer models used to offer advice would have to be certified in advance as objective and unbiased by an independent expert.

To comment on the proposed rules, click here.

Westat recently performed an evaluation of E-Verify for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and estimated that the program’s “inaccuracy rate for unauthorized workers” is about 54%.

That means one out of every two unauthorized workers is slipping past the system.

The reason? Many unauthorized workers commit identity fraud that E-Verify cannot detect, found Westat.

As a result, the DHS has stated that it’s working to improve the program by adding more databases and a photo-screening tool, and stepping up efforts to detect identity fraud.

However, while there are still problems that need to be worked out, E-Verify’s accuracy has improved.

Westat’s evaluation found that 96% of all workers were screened accurately — correctly identifying 93.1% of people as being allowed to work in the U.S. and 2.9% as unauthorized. Some 3.3% were unauthorized workers mistaken for authorized ones, and 0.7% were individuals who could work in the U.S. but where originally identified as unauthorized.

What happened

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) went after Sears, Roebuck & Co., when the company terminated 235 former workers immediately following their return to work after being out on workers’ compensation leave.

Sears violated the ADA when it refused to provide reasonable accommodations to employees who were returning from workers’ comp leave, the EEOC said.

Result: Sears agreed to settle for $6.2 million, and each employee in the suit will receive around $26,300. That’s the largest total settlement in the history of the EEOC.

In addition, Sears improved its workers’ compensation leave process and posted notices regarding the decree, according to EEOC officials.

Do you think this settlement is fair? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Because the House added “pay as you go” budgetary provisions, it now goes back to the Senate for approval. But one of the main provisions made it through the House unscathed.

A payroll tax holiday

The bill would give employers that hire new workers a break from paying the 6.2% Social Security tax on new hires’ wages for 2010.

But there is one catch — to get the tax break, anyone hired must have been unemployed for 60 days or more. Plus, the new hire can’t be related to the business owner and must replace someone who leaves voluntarily or is terminated for cause.

The bill would also provide a $1,000 income tax credit in 2011 for every new employee who stays on the payroll for a least a year.

In a vote that look place largely along party lines, the bill passed by a narrow tally of 217-201. The Senate is expected to take it up again this week.

We’ll keep you posted.

It all depends on the circumstances under which you’re living there.

What happened

A migrant worker broke his angle after falling on a sidewalk where water was flowing from a sink in front of company-provided housing.

The South Carolina Workers’ Comp Commission said that because he wasn’t required to live in the housing, he shouldn’t get comp.

But the man appealed to the State Supreme Court, which overturned the decision.

Why? The court found the man was essentially required to live in company-provided housing because he wasn’t paid enough to be able to rent seasonal housing.

Tell us whether you agree with this decision in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Pierre v. Seaside Farms, Inc.

The deadline for eligibility for the 65% health insurance premium subsidy has now been extended to those who are laid off through March 31. Previously, eligibility only extended to those who lost their jobs through Feb. 28.

Those eligible can still receive the subsidy for 15 months.

Last week, the House passed the one-month extension, but the bill got held up in the Senate until Tuesday. Once it passed the Senate, Obama quickly signed it into law.

The bill also allows thousands of workers whose unemployment benefits expired on Feb. 28 to receive them for another 30 days. The Department of Labor estimated nearly 400,000 could’ve seen their aid cut if Congress didn’t act.

Congress will now consider a much larger bill that would extend the COBRA subsidy and unemployment benefits through the end of the year.

We’ll keep you posted.

Another effect of the lagging economy: Recent research shows cash-strapped employees are cutting back on preventive healthcare measures.

More people are trading nutrition for processed and fast foods, and scaling back the amount of time they spend exercising.

So now’s a great time to refocus on preventive health care. If your company already has a wellness program (or is thinking of starting one), it’s a good idea to consider adding these features:

Claims checks and on-site screenings

Some wellness programs pinpoint at-risk employees by relying solely on the employees’ honesty in responding to health assessments. But let’s face it, employees aren’t always honest with themselves when it comes to their health. As a result, their answers on health assessments aren’t exactly accurate.

A better way to gauge workers’ health: Use a combination of data to determine who is at risk for chronic conditions. Example: Some companies use on-site health screenings and past claims history to assess if an employee is at-risk.

This approach has been found to significantly increase the amount of at-risk employees who are spotted.

Wellness consultants

Wellness program consultants are assigned to a company to help develop its wellness strategy, plan promotions, interpret reports and gauge the overall success of the wellness program.

Benefit: By keeping a close eye on a company’s wellness program, consultants can tweak and fix problems before they become out-of-control cost drivers.

Cross-trained coaches

Wellness coaches take a big-picture approach to helping employees with various lifestyle-related health issues.

Example: Smoking. There are a significant number of people who won’t try to quit smoking simply because they’re concerned about gaining weight.

But a cross-trained coach will help an employee quit smoking, while also making sure he or she makes smart nutritional choices to avoid the all-to-common weight gain that immediately follows kicking the habit.

What’s worked to improve your company’s wellness program lately? Let us know in the Comments Box below.