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The State of Workers’ Compensation Insurance

By March 26, 2015Commentary

Workers’ comp is worth checking in on every now and then because the majority of the costs are now for medical claims and many of the same techniques as used in health insurance are applied to workers’ comp health costs.  The Workers’ Compensation Research Institute has released its annual report on developments in the field.  (WCRI Report)  Highlights of WCRI’s work include studies on pain medication use and physician dispensing, especially of these paid drugs, often opioids.  Pain drug abuse is a countrywide problem and it is a top priority for workers’ compensation systems.  As a result of the WCRI studies and other work, a number of states have passed laws regulating how these drugs are prescribed.  Medical fee schedules are another problematic area, with great variance among states.  The general fee-for-service nature of workers’ compensation medical care likely leads to overtreatment and excessive utilization.  In some states, attempts are being made to revise the medical fee schedules to use Medicare reimbursement methods or to otherwise ensure that payments are not more than in the commercial health insurance world.  WCRI produces CompScope, a data analysis product that allows states and insurers to compare themselves to benchmarks and identify opportunities for improvement.  The report gives a good summary to track important issues on the health care side of workers’ comp.

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  • Darren Fonzseau says:

    This fence of addiciton discrimination in our health care private and comp is bs. and is going to end up costing the industry more in si realted pay outs over folks offing themselves over the lack of pain controll. The recent sutdies show us that this is causing a 30 percent rise in the iw. having a 30 percent inrease of SI ideation. Will paying out SI bennifts off sett on cost gained by trying to be purist breed industrials profiteers in our work comp and hmo care these days. Will trying to push a minoritiy bias social agenda, while ;profiteering off the victims, really be tollerated by the bottom 66% any more. Will the bottom continue to allow this class war to be played out in their care, with out riseing up and tipping over the moeny changers effing TABLES? Just asking, MUst the bottom give up their lives to get justice in
    America today where elites stack the civil roads aginst us so as to protise off the abuse their creang with bias social purist breed moral agendas, being shoved down our throats by elite dr. who then get to hid behind state med tort laws, and wc laws that protect all this bad bahvior by the elites fleecing the working ifirm and poor. Disgusting when you really step back and take a look at it. THE FEED say 33 states are BROKEN, becasue they are, and the workers are effing pissed off the elites are stealing from the then hinding behiknd the laws.
    THAT IS WHY ONE WORKERs comp adjusticator got shot. BUt the folks at WCRI could care less about that. Just those great wc insurance profits comming in for folks while one class beats down on their brothers and sister who do not eat like live like nor look like them. Sickening, almost as if there elites were nothing more than NAZI’s, who have infiltrated both politacl parites to profiteer and push their bias social moral agenda. What next, only red heds get treated on their OJI’s. WOW, a class war in our times. BRING IT ON MOTHERS IM sick of men who have never labored a day in their lives stealing from the men who do and have. YOU fuckking snakes in the grass, are creating public safety risks over trying to cheat folks and profiteer, all while pushing this holistic cost contain purist breed agenda.

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