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Cambridge, MA (WorkersCompensation.com) - The cost drivers of medical care in state workers’ compensation systems, the impact of legislative and regulatory changes on medical costs, and trends in payments, prices and utilization of medical care for injured workers are examined in a new set of studies from the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI).

The studies, CompScope™ Medical Benchmarks, 13th Edition, look at 16 different state workers’ compensation systems and provide a baseline of current medical costs and trends for state system stakeholders and document how medical payments per claim and their cost components compare with other states.

“The reports are designed to help policymakers and others benchmark the performance of state systems in providing medical care for injured workers,” said Ramona Tanabe, WCRI’s Deputy Director and Counsel. “The reports also provide an excellent baseline for tracking the effectiveness of policy changes and identifying important trends.”

The states in the study – Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin – represent nearly 60 percent of the nation’s workers’ compensation benefit payments.

Among key findings:

• Payments for hospital outpatient services in North Carolina stabilized following 2009 reforms, but ongoing growth in charges could mean resumption of growth in payments.

• Growth in payments for medical care of injured workers in Pennsylvania slowed recently.

• The report for California provides a baseline for monitoring the 2012 regulatory changes, which are expected to affect both price and utilization of medical care by most types of providers.

• The cost of medical care for injured workers in Michigan is among the lowest of the study states.

The reports present various measures in several areas, including medical costs, medical prices and utilization of services by provider and service type. For more information on the reports or how to purchase them, click on the following link:
http://www.wcrinet.org/result/csmed13_all_result.html.