The prevalence of opioids in California workers’ compensation lost-time claims has dropped 51% over the past decade, reducing both average benefit payments and average days away from work on those claims, according to a new study released by the California …
A new study shows that following the adoption of recent changes to streamline the California workers’ compensation medical review and approval process, 94.1% of medical services performed or requested for California injured workers were either approved or approved with modifications. …
Among the 870 bills that California Gov. Gavin Newsom acted upon for 2019 that were passed by the state Legislature, there were about 20 that may hold interest for the workers’ compensation community. The California Workers’ Compensation Institute issued a …
The number of California workers’ compensation inpatient hospital stays fell 1.9 percent between 2017 and 2018, for a net decline of nearly 31 percent since 2010, a new study shows. A study from the California Workers’ Compensation Institute traces much …
Workers’ compensation claim frequency reported by private self-insured employers in California rose last year, as the incidence of both indemnity and medical-only claims rose from the 2017 levels, the California Workers’ Compensation Institute reported. This is the second consecutive year …
After dipping for the first time ever in 2017, the number of workers’ comp medical dispute decision letters rose to an all-time high in 2018, according to a California Workers’ Compensation Institute study on the Independent Medical Review process used …
Rose Barrett of the Berkshire Hathaway Group was reelected as the chair of the California Workers’ Compensation Institute board of directors for 2019. Barrett, who has served on the CWCI board since 2014 and has been a member of the …
Since California implemented its workers’ compensation formulary last year, an increasing share of drugs prescribed to injured workers are either “Exempt” from prospective utilization review or “Not Listed” in the formulary, while “Non-Exempt” drugs that require UR before they can …
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, or NSAIDs, have supplanted opioids as the most common therapeutic drug group prescribed to injured workers in California, according to a new California Workers’ Compensation Institute study. The study also finds that payment data show that both dermatological …
Californians accounted for 11.9 percent of all jobs covered by workers’ compensation in the U.S. in 2016, 13.9 percent of covered payroll and 19.6 percent of all cash and medical benefits paid for work injuries and illnesses, according to the …
