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OSHA’s 2023 Electronic Reporting Final Rule: Your FAQs Answered

Ever since OSHA published its long-awaited final rule updating electronic injury and illness reporting requirements in its Recordkeeping Standard earlier this year, EHS professionals have had many questions.

• By Phil N. Molé
• May 03, 2024

Ever since OSHA published its long-awaited final rule updating electronic injury and illness reporting requirements in its Recordkeeping Standard earlier this year, EHS professionals like you have had many questions. That’s understandable, since OSHA’s changes to the Standard have wide-reaching impacts, including expansion of electronic reporting obligations for many establishments. Since the final rule went into effect on January 1, 2024, and the first reports under revised requirements were already due March 2, 2024, now is the time to make sure you understand and are meeting the revised reporting requirements.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about OSHA’s electronic reporting requirements, and their answers.

Background of the 2023 Final Rule

How are OSHA electronic reporting requirements changing?

At a very high level, the OSHA final rule creates 4 different categories of electronic reporting obligations, depending on establishment size and industry sector, as shown in the chart below.

Remember that OSHA established its applicability based on establishment size, not company size, and that applicability is based on both the employee threshold and the primary NAICS code. So, for example, if an establishment had 100+ employees at any one time during 2023 and has a primary NAICS code listed in the new Appendix B to Subpart E, the employer for that establishment would then need to electronically submit data from their 2023 Forms 300, 300A and 301 to OSHA via the ITA by March 2, 2024.

Here's more detail about how requirements break down for each of the four categories of establishments listed in the table above.

Establishments with < 20 employees
If you have fewer than 20 employees at your establishment at any one time, you don’t need to do electronic injury and illness reporting, whether under current requirements or revised requirements. Just document your employee headcount, making sure it includes all eligible employees.

Certain establishments with 20-249 employees

Establishments with 20–249 employees in certain designated industries (listed in appendix A to subpart E) will continue to be required to electronically submit information from their Form 300A annual summary to OSHA once a year (final § 1904.41(a)(1)(i)).

Establishments with 100+ employees listed in the new Appendix B

Establishments with 100+ employees in certain designated industries (listed in new appendix B to subpart E) will be newly required to electronically submit information from their OSHA Forms 300 and 301 to OSHA once a year (final § 1904.41(a)(2)). The industries listed in new appendix B were chosen based on three measures of industry hazardousness.

Establishments with 250+ employees subject to Recordkeeping Standard

Establishments with 250+ employees in industries that are required to routinely keep OSHA injury and illness records will continue to be required to electronically submit information from the Form 300A to OSHA once a year.

The Injury Tracking Application (ITA)

How do I create an ITA account?

If you’ve never set up an ITA account, don’t worry much about it – you’ll probably find the process to be similar to and not more difficult than setting up an online banking account. You’ll set up a user identification and an associated password, and you’ll get a confirmation email that will take you back to the login screen. From there you can start inputting establishment data.

The process is even easier if you already have a login.gov account for other federal government sites, because you can use the same login details for the ITA.

Is there an easy way to submit data for multiple establishments?

Yes! You have the option to prepare and submit a batch file in CSV format containing electronic injury and illness data for multiple reporting establishments. You just submit the file once, and the ITA will receive the data for all included facilities at the same time.

Please note that if you submit your data by CSV file, you will generate two confirmation e-mails. The first e-mail will indicate the ITA received your file. If you submitted a properly formatted file, the second e-mail will indicate which establishments successfully loaded and which establishments contained data errors. If your file contains invalid data and could not be loaded, the email will contain an error message.

OSHA’s Publication of Employer Injury and Illness Data

Why is OSHA going to publish employer data?

OSHA maintains that the publication of data from Recordkeeping forms will enhance the effectiveness of the Recordkeeping Standard by improving access to key data about workplace injuries and illnesses. “Congress intended for the Occupational Safety and Health Act to include reporting procedures that would provide the agency and the public with an understanding of the safety and health problems workers face, and this rule is a big step in finally realizing that objective,” Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker stated in a press release. “OSHA will use this data to intervene through strategic outreach and enforcement to reduce worker injuries and illnesses in high-hazard industries.”

How will OSHA protect confidential employee information when publishing data?

OSHA had already published 300A data for reporting years from 2016 through 2022 on its site, but because 300A data contains only summary-level info about numbers and rates of injuries and illnesses with no identifying details about individual incidents, there is no potential for disclosure of confidential employee information.

Things have changed now that some establishments need to submit information from Forms 300 and 301 because those forms contain details about specific incidents, including identifying information about the employees involved, whether hospitalizations were involved, diagnosis of specific injuries and illnesses, and description of medical treatments administered. In the absence of safeguards, there is a possibility that protected personal and confidential information could be publicly shared when OSHA publishes this information.

What will OSHA do if employer-submitted forms contain confidential information? The Federal Register notice states that OSHA “plans to use automated de-identification technology, supplemented with some manual review of the data, to identify and remove information that could reasonably be expected to identify individuals directly from the fields the agency intends to publish,” and that “the agency will not publish text-based data until such information, if any, has been identified and removed.” The Federal Register notice states OSHA plans to use an automated coding system to code collected data, and that until the autocoding system has been tested and is in place, OSHA intends to only use and publish uncoded data.

Consequences of Non-Reporting

How is OSHA targeting establishments that haven’t reported?

A primary enforcement tool OSHA uses for electronic injury and illness reporting is the Site-Specific Targeting (SST) Program. The current version of the SST, which went into effect on February 7, 2023, targets establishments for inspection if they have significantly lower or higher than industry average injury rates based on reporting year 2021 data, or upward-trending injury rates based on 2019 through 2021 data. The SST states that OSHA will target apparent non-responders that (based on OSHA’s information) had obligations to prepare and submit electronic 300A data but failed to do so for reporting year 2021.

Inspections conducted under the SST will be “comprehensive in scope,” and during facility visits, Compliance, Safety and Health Officers (CSHOs) will review the OSHA 300 logs, 300A summaries, and 301 incident reports for three prior calendar years, which will include CY 2019, 2020, and 2021. Employers need to think about not only the accuracy, but also the accessibility of their records, to keep recordkeeping mistakes from snowballing. Failure to complete and submit electronic injury and illness records when required to do so places your establishment on a prioritized list for inspection, and failure to produce other required forms during the inspection increases the likelihood of violations and fines.

Meeting Updated Electronic Reporting Requirements

EHS professionals and company leadership need to reassess and potentially improve their incident management practices. You’ll need reliable methods to ensure that you’re capturing and documenting all OSHA recordable injuries and illnesses and maintaining accurate injury and illness records. Complete and accurate injury and illness recordkeeping is important for proactive EHS management even aside from regulatory requirements, but it becomes even more urgent given the possibility that OSHA is preparing to make records for some establishments publicly available.

Modern safety management software can help by making it easy for you and your workers to report incidents, document follow-up, and generate accurate OSHA forms. Even better, you’ll be able to access forms for multiple establishments from anywhere, at any time, and electronically submit forms to OSHA via the ITA.

If your current recordkeeping methods cause you to feel anxious about meeting OSHA’s revised electronic reporting requirements, now’s the time to look for better alternatives.