PTSD Hearings Continue in Senate

This week the Ohio Senate Insurance and Financial Institutions Committee had its second hearing on Senate Bill 118. The bill, sponsored by Senators Frank LaRose (R-Copley) and Edna Brown (D-Toledo), would allow peace officers, firefighters, and emergency medical workers diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) without an accompanying physical injury eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits.

Ohio law currently requires that an individual is only eligible for PTSD benefits if the diagnosis arises from an accompanying physical injury. The OMA and other business groups have long opposed the expansion of workers’ compensation benefits to non-physical injury.

Over the past several years the OMA has offered the General Assembly a variety of solutions to ensure that Ohio’s first responders receive the necessary care without expanding the Ohio’s workers’ compensation laws. 4/19/2018