Workers’ compensation insurers have slashed spending on opioids, reducing the risk of addiction and delayed recovery, but now they are under increasing pressure to reimburse injured workers for a new kind of elixir. Six states now allow or require insurers …
COVID-19 did not delay medical treatment for workers’ compensation claimants, but did decrease the amount of emergency care and other services provided to injured workers, a study released Thursday by the Workers’ Compensation Institute concludes. Research by WCRI economist Olesya …
Despite potential obstacles posed by the coronavirus pandemic, injured workers experienced no meaningful delays in access to medical treatment under their employers’ workers’ compensation programs during the pandemic. Research from the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) also shows that states …
While at least 17 states have passed laws or issued orders that expanded access to workers’ compensation benefits for employees who contract COVID-19, many of those directives are creating new exposure for only a sliver of the workforce, new research …
With the COVID-19 virus causing economic disruption, The Workers’ Compensation Research Institute would like to share the findings from a study we published in 2010 that sheds light on how a typical recession affects the return to work of injured …
Workers’ compensation insurers are reporting dramatic reductions in opioid use by injured workers. In some cases, all it took was asking doctors to stop renewing prescriptions. A peer-reviewed study by Mitchell International and Utah’s WCF Mutual Insurance Co. found that …
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 …
The second Workers’ Compensation Research Institute study released this month concludes that medical treatment for injured workers costs more and prices are growing faster in states that don’t have fee schedules. WCRI reported Thursday that in 30 states without fee …
When the price of physician services increases relative to group health rates, injured workers report fewer problems getting the care they want but no significant improvement in physical function or speedier return to work, according to a study released Thursday …
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 …