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From Bob's Cluttered Desk

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Social Security Numbers and Workers' Comp Forms - The Ugly

  • 06/05/17
  • Robert Wilson


Editor's Note: An error in our forms survey regarding the State of Wisconsin has been brought to our attention. For the vast majority of their forms, inclusion of the Social Security number is optional. You may read about the correction here.

I've been writing about my recent experience as a victim of identity theft, and as part of that process have recognized how vulnerable our system is to the exposing and exploitation of critical personal info belonging to the injured workers we are supposed to protect. An analysis of state workers' compensation forms from across the nation revealed that currently, out of 3,417 forms, 734, or 21.5% require or call for a full social security number. As I've said in previous articles on the topic, these forms are shared with TPA's, carriers, state agencies, law offices, doctors' offices, support vendors and more. Each transaction point represents real risk that a breach may occur and injured workers' identities may be exploited.

That is simply unacceptable.

I've told you about the three jurisdictions that, as a percentage of total forms, were the worst on the list. They were the “bad”. Then I discussed the states that are working to resolve, or have already resolved the issue. They were the “good”. Now, for better or worse, we will discuss those states with the greatest number of forms that require social security numbers to be fully disclosed. These are the ugly. The very ugly indeed.

The winner of this ignoble award, the state with the most forms requiring full social security numbers, is New York. With 182 forms in their system, a whopping 47 of them require that data. That is 25.8% of their forms. To put this in perspective, they require this info on more forms than 15 other states have in their entire collection. That is a lot of unnecessary exposure!

Next up would be Nevada, with 31 out of 71 total forms calling for the social security numbers of injured workers. Wisconsin, previously listed as “the bad” with the highest percentage of forms containing that field, also turns out to be on the ugly list with 28 forms out of a total of 47. They are our only double award designee.

Lucky them.

Pennsylvania actually has more such forms with 37, but as noted in “the good”, they allow it as optional if a “WC-ID” is used instead. When they make that mandatory, they get upgraded to “the great”. Until that time, I suppose they are the “good and ugly”. In fact, in an ironic twist, 5 of the top ten states with the most forms requiring a SS# were previously listed as “the good” for their efforts to reduce the dependency on this element. They are highlighted in red in the table below. They have more work to do, but it is encouraging that they have at least recognized the problem.

The top ten states with social security fields on the most forms are:

State

# of Forms

Full SSN #

New York

182

47

Pennsylvania

87

37

Nevada

71

31

Wisconsin

47

28

Texas

169

27

Minnesota

77

27

Georgia

71

27

Massachusetts

80

26

Federal

67

26

Rhode Island

71

24

This needs to change. Other industries have responded to the surge of identity theft by eliminating the blatant misuse of these numbers. Yet, the medical and workers' compensation complexes seem to lag woefully behind. A representative of one of our “ugly” states told me that they would like to stop, but can't (sounds familiar, doesn't it?). Their legacy systems are too antiquated, they cannot function without the numbers, and they lack the funding to get new systems.

I sympathize, but that will be little comfort to injured workers whose credit is ruined as a result of a needless data breach. Fight for the funding; fight for needed change. As someone who is going through the rigors of identity theft, I can assure you it is the last thing these injured workers should have to worry about.

And, in case you are wondering how your state fares in this competition, here are the full results of our forms audit, listed by percentage of forms requiring full social security numbers.

State

# of Forms

Full SSN #

Last 4 SSN

Total with #

% of Total w/Full SSN

Wisconsin

47

28

0

28

59.6%

West Virginia

28

16

0

16

57.1%

District of Columbia

14

7

0

7

50.0%

Delaware

20

9

0

9

45.0%

Nevada

71

31

0

31

43.7%

Alaska

53

23

0

23

43.4%

Indiana*

35

15

0

15

42.9%

Pennsylvania*

87

37

2

39

42.5%

Louisiana

44

18

2

20

40.9%

Utah

51

20

1

21

39.2%

Federal

67

26

0

26

38.8%

Georgia*

71

27

0

27

38.0%

New Jersey

66

24

0

24

36.4%

Minnesota *

77

27

0

27

35.1%

Arkansas

41

14

0

14

34.1%

Michigan

68

23

3

26

33.8%

Rhode Island

71

24

7

31

33.8%

Wyoming

24

8

1

9

33.3%

Massachusetts*

80

26

0

26

32.5%

Idaho

57

18

0

18

31.6%

South Carolina

49

15

0

15

30.6%

Arizona

37

11

0

11

29.7%

New Hampshire

56

16

0

16

28.6%

Mississippi*

26

7

0

7

26.9%

New York

182

47

0

47

25.8%

Hawaii

16

4

0

4

25.0%

Kentucky

58

14

2

16

24.1%

Tennessee

72

17

0

17

23.6%

North Dakota

78

18

0

18

23.1%

Kansas

79

18

0

18

22.8%

Alabama

14

3

0

3

21.4%

South Dakota

29

6

0

6

20.7%

North Carolina

72

14

26

40

19.4%

Texas

169

27

29

56

16.0%

Longshore

35

5

0

5

14.3%

Florida

96

12

0

12

12.5%

Virginia

68

8

0

8

11.8%

Iowa

38

4

0

4

10.5%

Missouri

105

11

5

16

10.5%

Maryland

71

7

0

7

9.9%

Washington

142

14

0

14

9.9%

Nebraska

78

6

0

6

7.7%

New Mexico

52

4

1

5

7.7%

Ohio

173

11

0

11

6.4%

Vermont

65

3

0

3

4.6%

Montana

74

3

0

3

4.1%

Oregon

146

5

0

5

3.4%

Oklahoma*

100

2

44

46

2.0%

Illinois

71

1

1

2

1.4%

Connecticut

44

0

0

0

0.0%

Maine

50

0

38

38

0.0%

Totals

3417

734

162

896

21.5%

* Indiana - disclosure of SSN is voluntary

*Pennsylvania - note - on the majority of forms displaying full SSN, , it is considered optional if the WC ID # is entered in a separate field.

*Georgia - The Board Tracking Number is ok to be used in lieu of SSN on all forms

*Minnesota - Allows use of "WID" # ( Worker Identification Number) in lieu of SSN on 26 forms,full SSN only required on NOI, Wid # is generated during Noi filing process

*Massachusetts - note, almost all forms involved have a notation that disclosure is voluntary, but will expedite the processing of the form.

*Mississippi - disclosure of SSN is voluntary

*Oklahoma - includes old court claims and new claims, most forms have a mirror image in the other realm. Almost all are only last 4 digits displayed.



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Robert Wilson is President & CEO of WorkersCompensation.com, and "From Bob's Cluttered Desk" comes his (often incoherent) thoughts, ramblings, observations and rants - often on workers' comp or employment issues, but occasionally not.

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