The Official Medical Fee Schedule (OMFS) conversion factor thus increased a little more than 17 per cent.

This drove up the cost to treat injured workers.

Each section of the fee schedule uses rules to calculate payment and different inflation factors to update reimbursement rates under California’s workers’ compensation system.

Fee schedules for inpatient services, outpatient, ambulatory surgery centers, ambulance services, and durable medical equipment use Medicare’s inflationary factors. The inflationary factors for these sections have been lower than general economic inflation, the report said.

But adjustments to the conversation factors used to calculate fees for professional services, which CWCI said account for 53% of medical payments in the state’s workers’ compensation system, have not aligned with Medicare.