COVID-19 Vaccine Provider Partners for Businesses and Organizations.

Vaccination is the key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on businesses, their employees, customers, and broader community. You can play a critical role in making vaccination as easy and convenient as possible by hosting a vaccination clinic for your employees who choose to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Ohio Department of Health has updated its list of participating COVID-19 vaccination providers willing to conduct onsite vaccination clinics for local employers and interested employees. The list is posted on the state's coronavirus website at https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/static/vaccine/business-provider-partners.pdf.

The Ohio Department of Health offers guidance, tools and resources for employers who want to host onsite COVID-19 vaccination clinics for employees, which also are available on the state's coronavirus website at COVID-19 Vaccination Program for Businesses and Organizations.

Please consider hosting a vaccination clinic by partnering with a participating provider in your community to help end the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dividend checks on the way!

On October 18, BWC began sending dividend checks to approximately 3,000 employers. In September, the BWC Board of Directors approved the expansion of the agency's December dividend to employers who did not originally meet eligibility requirements.

Now, those checks are in the mail. So if you are one of the newly eligible employers, be on the look out.

At Governor DeWine's request, BWC's Board has authorized more than $9.2 billion in dividends to Ohio employers since 2019.

BWC will first apply the dividend to an employer's unpaid premium balance, then send a check for the rest. Employers that receive this dividend may receive an IRS 1099 tax form in January 2022.

Public employer rates drop

Ohio's public employers will pay nearly $17 million less in premiums next year to the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) thanks to a rate cut that will go into effect Jan. 1, 2022. This 10% rate reduction was made possible by declining injury claims and relatively low medical inflation costs by Ohio's counties, cities, public schools, and other public taxing districts.

This reduction marks BWC's 12th rate cut for public employers since 2009. There have also been several rate reductions for private employers in recent years.

The reduction represents a statewide average. The actual premium change for an individual public entity will differ based on multiple factors, including employer type or classification, payroll levels, recent claims history, and their participation in various BWC programs.