Since its launch in June, a whistleblower website for workers’ compensation violations in Florida has generated hundreds of new complaints and more than $500,000 in penalties.

Alex Sink

Florida CFO Alex Sink, who heads the state’s department of financial services, which oversees insurance fraud, said the website is making it easier for any citizen to file an online complaint about suspected non-compliance with workers’ compensation rules with real-time feedback.  The site, she said, also allows the Florida Division of Workers Compensation to input referrals and initiate faster investigations.

To date, the website has received 328 online referrals. From those referrals, 36 stop-work orders have been issued, resulting in $526,000 in assessed penalties.

Referrals are entered into a database with those submitting information able to receive feedback without revealing their identity, according to Sink’s office.

Sink said Florida workers injured on the job can face “devastating” medical bills and “serious financial hardship” if their employers are not property covered, the reason her office wants to make it easy to report possible violations of state law.

“This new workers’ comp. whistle-blower website makes it easier for our citizens to provide anonymous referrals for alleged violations and also allows for more expedient fraud investigations,” Sink said in a statement. “And with half a million dollars already assessed in penalties from these online referrals, we can see this new system is working.”