What Are the New OSHA Reporting Requirements for Injuries and Illnesses?

The new OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) reporting requirements for injuries and illnesses pertains to high-hazard industries. This rule has been described as “groundbreaking” and expands the injury and illness data submission requirements for high-hazard industries. The rule was announced on July 17, 2023 and will come into effect from January 1, 2024. It requires certain employers in designated high-risk sectors to electronically submit injury and illness information to OSHA. Employers will have to electronically submit their Form 300 – Log-of-work-related Injuries and Illnesses and Form 301 – Injury and Illness Incident Report, apart from the OSHA Form 300A to OSHA once per year. As a medical review company assisting workers’ compensation attorneys and OSHA attorneys, we understand that this may be with a view to provide public access about a company’s safety record and thereby promote workplace safety.

OSHA’s Existing Record Maintenance Requirements

OSHA mandates most workplaces, except very low-risk workplaces, with more than 10 employees to maintain records of all workplace injuries and illnesses. Apart from recording work-related cases throughout the year, some employers are required to electronically submit information regarding injuries and illnesses to OSHA on an annual basis. Currently, OSHA’s regulations for reporting injuries and illnesses (29 CFR Part 1904.41) require 2 categories of workplace (establishment) to submit an annual summary of injury/illness cases.

• Establishments with 250 or more employees
• Establishments with 20 – 249 employees in designated higher-risk industries

OSHA requires covered employers to maintain records pertaining to their employees’ work-related injuries and illnesses on three forms:

• Form 300A Summary of Work-related Injuries and Illnesses, which includes data regarding injury and illness for an establishment for a particular calendar year.
• Form 300 Log of Work-related Injuries and Illnesses, which documents details regarding each illness/injury case such as the body part involved, the type of injury/illness and its severity, and the estimated period of recovery.
• Form 301 Injury and Illness Incident Reports, which contain further details about the injured or ill employee as well as the circumstances that led to an injury or illness listed on the OSHA 300 Log.

Changes Accompanying OSHA’s New Rule

At present employers are required only to submit the summary data from Form 300A. They did not have to submit the more comprehensive data on Form 300 and Form 301. With the introduction of the new rule, this will change. Once the new rule is implemented, employers in the designated industries with more than 100 employees have to submit Form 300 and Form 301, in addition to Form 300A every year using OSHA’s Injury Tracking Application (ITA). Also, OSHA requires employers to include their company name when making electronic submissions. This detailed injury/illness data for calendar year 2023 must be provided by March 2, 2024.

OSHA has listed the covered industries in a new appendix to the regulations. Here are some of those designated industries.

• Cattle Ranching and Farming
• Logging
• Water, Sewage and Other Systems
• Foundation, Structure, and Building Exterior Contractors
• Dairy Product Manufacturing
• Seafood Product Preparation and Packaging
• Bakeries and Tortilla Manufacturing
• Other Food Manufacturing
• Plastics Product Manufacturing
• Steel Product Manufacturing from Purchased Steel
• Architectural and Structural Metals Manufacturing
• Hardware Manufacturing
• Machine Shops; Turned Product; and Screw, Nut, and Bolt Manufacturing
• Grocery and Related Product Merchant Wholesalers
• Automotive Parts, Accessories, and Tire Stores
• Building Material and Supplies Dealers
• Grocery Stores
• Department Stores
• General Freight Trucking
• Other Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation
• Couriers and Express Delivery Services
• Warehousing and Storage
• Waste Collection
• General Medical and Surgical Hospitals
• Spectator Sports
• Amusement Parks and Arcades
• Traveler Accommodation

What OSHA Does with the Collected Data

Most of the data collected from Form 300 and Form 301 will be published on OSHA’s public website. Any information that could be used to identify individuals directly (names and contact information) will be removed before publishing. OSHA believes that publication of this data will enable OSHA, employers, employees, researchers, safety consultants and the general public to use the data in ways that will eventually result in the reduction of occupational injuries and illnesses.

The new rule increases the amount of data made available to OSHA, and they can use the information to

• Prepare for inspections
• Determine which employers need to be inspected
• Determine ahead of time what to scrutinize during the inspection
• Focus on certain industries
• Identify the actually injured or ill employees

The new rule is expected to increase employers’ exposure to OSHA citations and penalties.

How Employers Could Prepare to Ensure Compliance

• Find out whether they are indeed covered by the new rule
• Start organizing Forms 300, 300A and 301 for calendar year 2023
• Scrutinize their recordkeeping procedures to make sure that the forms are properly and accurately filled up
• Decide how they will be submitting the forms into ITA. Options are to manually enter the data, upload a CSV file to add multiple establishments at the same time, or transmit the data electronically via an application programming interface or API.
• Ensure that they have an ITA (Injury Tracking Application) account and a gov account
• Have a clear idea about who will submit the Forms into ITA
• Become familiar with ITA so that the submission goes smoothly
• Plan ahead so that all the required forms for the year 2023 can be submitted before March 2, 2024.

Disclaimer: The content in this blog is meant for informative purposes only and does not constitute a professional opinion. It has been sourced from reliable online resources. For a professional opinion, contact a qualified attorney.