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State: Ntl. Moore: Fee Schedules = Less Costly Claims and Premiums: [2018-07-10] |
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Virtually all workers' compensation fee schedules cut comp costs across the board. The Workers Compensation Research Institute just published a massive study on workers compensation fee schedules. The study covers 87% of the workers' comp benefits paid in the U.S. Drs. Rebecca Yang and Olesya Fomenko’s extremely comprehensive study covers 35 states. These two researchers are data geniuses along with all the staff at WCRI. For many years (more than 11) I have written numerous articles on fee schedules. Why? Because they are governmental interventions that usually totally works to reduce the cost to employers, carriers and all other parties. Virginia just enacted a fee schedule. For some reason, I thought Virginia would never have one. Some tweaks will likely be needed for that fee schedule. The WCRI study compares medical prices paid in 35 states and tracks price changes in most states over a 10-year span, from 2008 to 2017, for professional services billed by physicians, physical therapists and chiropractors. The medical services fall into eight groups: evaluation and management, physical medicine, surgery, major radiology, minor radiology, neurological testing, pain management injections and emergency care. One interesting development pointed out by WCRI is that the following states had major fee schedule changes: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Texas. The rating bureaus such as the National Council on Compensation Insurance (most of nation) and the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (California) both provided numerous articles on fee schedules reducing costs. The following is a sample of the WCRI study’s findings (directly from its website):
I think we can draw a direct conclusion from the data by NCCI, WCIRB and especially WCRI. States can help themselves by enacting and properly adjusting their workers' compensation fee schedules. This blog post is provided by James Moore, AIC, MBA, ChFC, ARM, and is republished with permission from J&L Risk Management Consultants. Visit the full website at www.cutcompcosts.com. |