Last year was a good one for Delaware workers' compensation case management, according to an annual report for the state Department of Labor.

The report highlighted three areas of progress in 2017:

• Implementation of the third phase of new fee schedules, which dictates a 13.5 % reduction in medical fees, as required by state law. The cuts came about, in part, by tying workers' compensation rates to Medicare fee schedules, the report said.
• More efficient disposal of petitions. Despite an increase in the number of petitions last year, the number of pending cases at the end of the year was down significantly from 2016. The Office of Workers' Compensation also completed an upgrade to its computerized case management system, which produced efficiencies.
• Requests for utilization review also dropped by almost 14% from 2016, to 321 requests in 2017.