Montgomery County is hiring private eyes to spy on employees who may have filed bogus claims as part of an effort to curb rising worker’s compensation costs.
County employees file more than 2,000 worker’s compensation claims a year, and the county spent more than $16.5 million on settling claims during the last fiscal year — more than a 50 percent increase from three years go, according to county records.
“As in any situation, there may be employees that are taking advantage of the system, and we want to make sure they’re not,” said Patricia Via, a county attorney division chief whose office handles contested worker’s comp cases.
Montgomery County’s worker’s compensation payments:
Fiscal 2006: $10.7 million
2007: $11.4 million
2008: $14.8 million
2009: $16.5 million
Source: Montgomery County
Via said she didn’t know how many times the county has hired private investigators, but said they are used infrequently and only when the county has reason to believe an employee is trying to “game” the system.
Via pointed to the case of county permit technician Helen Smith, who lost a jury trial over a worker’s compensation claim earlier this month, as an example how helpful a private investigator’s work can be.
Smith filed a claim last year seeking worker’s compensation pay and an epidural injection because of what she said was nagging back pain left over from the 1997 injury,for which the county already compensated her. That injury occurred after Smith fell to the floor after her chair slipped out from under her, court records show.
The county hired a private investigator to tail Smith for five days over one month. The investigator filmed Smith, who had not been at her desk job for several weeks because she said she was in too much pain, taking a tour of Luray Caverns and having a picnic, court records show.
When the county showed the film to its doctor, who had previously examined her and approved an epidural injection, he changed his mind and said Smith needed no treatment and there was “no reason why she cannot be working full time,” court records show.
The video showed that Smith was able to look up at stalactites, sit at a picnic bench for an extended period of time and “reach behind her to get things out of a cooler with no apparent distress,” Dr. Robert Collins wrote in a report, court records show.
“There was no sign or indication of any pain or problem,” he said.
Smith, who did not return phone calls seeking comment, said in court records that some days her pain was more intense than others.
