Workers’ compensation: hospital employees.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary text does not provide details on the specific time periods after employment during which the presumptions apply.

Workers' Compensation for Hospital Employees

This law changes workers' compensation rules to include certain health conditions and injuries for hospital employees who provide direct patient care.

What This Bill Does

• Defines 'injury' for hospital employees providing direct patient care in acute care hospitals to include infectious diseases, cancer, musculoskeletal injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and respiratory diseases.
• Includes COVID-19 and its variants in the definitions of infectious and respiratory diseases.
• Creates a rebuttable presumption that these listed conditions developed or manifested by hospital employees providing direct patient care arose from their work.

Who It Names or Affects

• Hospital employees who provide direct patient care in acute care hospitals.

Terms To Know

Rebuttable Presumption

A legal assumption that something is true unless there is evidence to prove it false.

Acute Care Hospital

A hospital that provides medical care for patients with severe or life-threatening conditions.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify the exact time periods after employment during which the presumption applies.
• It is unclear how this law will be enforced and what resources will be provided to support it.

Official Summary Text

SB 632, as amended, Arreguín.
Workers’ compensation: hospital employees.
Existing law establishes a workers’ compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers’ Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of employment. Existing law creates a rebuttable presumption that specified injuries sustained in the course of employment of a specified member of law enforcement or a specified first responder arose out of and in the course of employment. Prior existing law, until January 1, 2024, created a rebuttable presumption of injury for various employees, including an employee who works at a health facility, as defined, that included an illness or death resulting from COVID-19, if specified circumstances applied.
This bill would define “injury,” for a hospital employee who provides direct patient care in an acute care hospital, to include infectious
diseases, cancer, musculoskeletal injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, and respiratory diseases. The bill would include the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) from SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, among other conditions, in the definitions of infectious and respiratory diseases. The bill would create rebuttable presumptions that these injuries that develop or manifest in a hospital employee who provides direct patient care in an acute care hospital arose out of and in the course of the employment. The bill would extend these presumptions for specified time periods after the hospital employee’s termination of employment.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF