Coventry gets slapped with a two hundred-million-plus dollar damage award for failing to comply with Louisiana’s PPO statute. Ouch that hurts. A vivid example of the need to pay careful attention to each jurisdiction’s regulations when running a national business.
The NCCI Annual Issue Symposium always provides useful insight on the state of workers’ compensation insurance. The recently held 2010 version was no exception and the presentation and video of the State of the Line remarks are chock-full of great information.
Many states have created workers’ compensation fee schedules based on Medicare reimbursement for physicians. Doing so can create traps if the frequent changes in the Medicare payment mechanisms are not carefully followed. A new NCCI report examines these issues.
While employees over 65 are a very small part of the work force, their numbers are growing and the recession likely will keep people working longer. These employees have some different characteristics in regard to workers’ compensation claims, according to a new NCCI report.
Health care costs account for over half of workers’ compensation spending. More attention is being given to drivers of this spending and a new study identifies a small group of physicians as responsible for a huge amount of the cost.
The GAO looks at OSHA’s auditing of workplace injury reporting and finds that there may be under-reporting. To the extent this is true, the very real and significant decline in workers compensation claims may be reversed, making medical management efforts even more important.
An NCCI report indicates that increasing time-off benefits in workers’ compensation insurance results in employees staying off the job for a longer period of time, incurring higher work comp costs for employers.
Researchers at the University of California suggest that if workers’ compensation medical care were moved to general health insurance, the administrative savings would pay for expanded access in reform bills.