https://www.wcrinet.org/reports/workers-compensation-medical-cost-containment-a-national-inventory-2018

The Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) released their annual “Workers’ Compensation Medical Cost Containment” study which provides an inventory of all the cost containment initiatives taken by the states and the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act and the Long shore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. It contains key features of each jurisdiction’s initiatives in order to provide stakeholders with a basic understanding of each initiative, and gives references for those who might want more details.

Medical benefits represent the single biggest cost component for many state workers’ compensation systems. Cost containment initiatives began to generate interests from the states in the early 1990s when medical costs were growing rapidly, and policymakers wanted to reduce costs while ensuring workers still got adequate care. The study from WCRI was created so that policymakers could see what other jurisdictions were doing to contain costs.

The report discussed features of each jurisdiction’s medical fee schedules, regulation of hospital charges, choice of provider, treatment guidelines, utilization review/management, managed care, pharmaceutical regulations, urgent care and ambulatory surgery center fee schedules and medical dispute regulations.

Read the press release from WCRI here and check out the full report here.