Private employers and insurers are happy. Claims service entities? Not so much.

Joe Paduda

That’s the key takeaway from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' summary of injury and illness data, indicating totals dropped 3.1% from 2023 to 2024, continuing the decades-long decline in industrial injuries and illnesses.

Two more data points to ponder:

• The percentage of full-time equivalents who got hurt or sick also declined, down to 2.3 per 100 FTEs from 2.4 in 2023.
• From 2019 to 2024, the total number of occupational injuries dropped by 343,000, almost 13%.

Caveat: BLS injuries and illnesses are not directly comparable to work comp claims, but are pretty close. More on that here.

Implications abound.

• With one of every eight injuries disappearing, claims service entities have less work to do.
• This trend is (pick your adjective) entrenched, structural, entirely consistent with the last three decades.
• What would be the rationale for an insurer to invest in IT, staff, training, workflow improvement and infrastructure, knowing claim volume shrinks every year by 3%?

Joseph Paduda is the principal of Health Strategy Associates, a consulting firm focused on improving medical management programs in workers’ compensation. This column is republished with his permission from his Managed Care Matters blog.