Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 780 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure, as received by your Committee, is to allow time spent away from work to receive medical treatments for workplace injuries to be considered as periods of temporary partial disability and therefore compensable under the workers' compensation law.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Hawaii Chapter American Physical Therapy Association, Consumer Lawyers of Hawaii, and the ILWU Local 142. Testimony in support of the concept of this measure was submitted by the Hawaii Insurers Council. Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, and the Hawaii Employers' Mutual Insurance Company.

Your Committee finds that there are often situations where a worker returns to employment before completion of medical treatments related to workplace injuries, but their time away from work to receive ongoing treatment is not considered compensable under the workers' compensation law. Your Committee further finds that while there is merit to compensating such time spent receiving treatments, the more appropriate mechanism for providing this consideration would be to provide medical wage loss benefits for the period of time during which the employee is receiving the treatments.

Thus, your Committee has amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 780, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 780, S.D. 1.