fee schedule News

Kansas Supreme Court Orders More Fact-Finding in Air Ambulance Case

Federal law may prohibit states from regulating prices charged to insurers by air ambulance providers, but that doesn’t absolve the Workers’ Compensation Board of its responsibility to determine whether the billed charges are “usual and customary,” a split Kansas Supreme …

WCRI Report Shows Wide Variety in How States Control Work Comp Medical Costs

Workers’ compensation medical costs vary widely among the states both in terms of price and how often services are used. The differences appear to relate closely to which cost-drivers each state legislature tried to control and which were overlooked, according …

WCRI: States Without Work Comp Fee Schedules Paying the Price

The dwindling number of states that have no fee schedule, or that set fees according to a percentage of billed charges, are paying far more for outpatient surgery than states that have adopted some version of Medicare’s payment system, according …

New York Workers’ Comp Board Proposes Improvements in Care for Injured Workers

The New York State Workers’ Compensation Board has proposed improvements in medical care for injured workers. Its proposal includes an increase in medical reimbursement to providers who treat workers’ compensation claimants and the adoption of a universal claim form to …

Differences in State Workers’ Comp Policies Affect Claim Costs and Disability Time

Certain workers’ compensation policies explain much of the state-level variation in costs and outcomes of claims for low back pain (LBP), reports a study in the December Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Dr. Glenn Pransky of Liberty Mutual Research …

Maximize the Effectiveness of Your DME Bill Review Process

Decoding DME Wheelchairs, crutches, canes, compression sleeves, slings, electrodes and orthotics—these and other durable medical equipment (DME) are regularly prescribed by doctors to help injured workers manage their injuries. However, with a wide variety of makes and models available, many …

California Workers’ Comp Medical Care Costs Moderated Prior To Reforms

A recent study from Cambridge-based Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) looked at the potential impact of recent reform legislation on price and utilization of medical services in the California workers’ compensation system. CompScope Medical Benchmarks for California, 14th Edition, provides …