Armour Foods thin slices workers' comp costs

Armour found its workers' compensation costs to be disproportionately high. In response, it set up a "Focal Physician" program, which dealt successfully with the problem.     

Medical costs in workers' compensation insurance

We examine whether patients covered by workers' compensation insurance, which covers the cost of medical care for injured workers without cost sharing and with relatively little oversight, are charged more for treatment or receive more services than patients covered by traditional insurance. Our findings indicate that workers compensation recipients are charged more for treatment. This difference persists in individual services--workers' compensation recipients are charged more per X-ray and per examination than our patients. We consider different explanations and argue that price discrimination probably plays a role.     

Ten years' experience using an integrated workers' compensation management system to control workers' compensation costs

This work presents 10 years of experience using an Integrated Workers' Compensation Claims Management System that allows safety professionals, adjusters, and selected medical and nursing providers to collaborate in a process of preventing accidents and expeditiously assessing, treating, and returning individuals to productive work. The hallmarks of the program involve patient advocacy and customer service, steerage of injured employees to a small network of physicians, close follow-up, and the continuous dialogue between parties regarding claims management. The integrated claims management system was instituted in fiscal year 1992 servicing a population of approximately 21,000 individuals. The system was periodically refined and by the 2002 fiscal year, 39,000 individuals were managed under this paradigm. The frequency of lost-time and medical claims rate decreased 73% (from 22 per 1000 employees to 6) and 61% (from 155 per 1000 employees to 61), respectively, between fiscal year 1992 and fiscal year 2002. The number of temporary/total days paid per 100 insureds decreased from 163 in fiscal year 1992 to 37 in fiscal year 2002, or 77%. Total workers' compensation expenses including all medical, indemnity and administrative, decreased from $0.81 per $100 of payroll in fiscal year 1992 to $0.37 per $100 of payroll in fiscal year 2002, a 54% decrease. More specifically, medical costs per $100 of payroll decreased 44% (from $0.27 to $0.15), temporary/total, 61% (from $0.18 to $0.07), permanent/partial, 63% (from $0.19 to $0.07) and administrative costs, 48% ($0.16 to $0.09). These data suggests that workers' compensation costs can be reduced over a multi-year period by using a small network of clinically skilled health care providers who address an individual workers' psychological, as well as physical needs and where communication between all parties (e.g., medical care providers, supervisors, and injured employees) is constantly maintained. Furthermore, these results can be obtained in an environment in which the employer pays the full cost of medical care and the claimant has free choice of medical provider at all times.     

Medical costs in workers' compensation insurance: comment

Professors Baker and Krueger ignore some costs associated with workers' compensation. Because of these costs, the contention that physicians willfully exploit the workers' compensation system for their own gain is questioned.     

Managing workers' compensation costs: success of initiatives to change outcomes

The cost of workers' compensation health care has been a challenge during the past few decades. Various programs have been initiated on the local, state, and national levels to address this issue. The purpose of this article is to examine some of the programs that have initiated cost control measures. Most of those published claim successful outcomes. The initiatives reviewed herein were instituted at medical centers in Maryland and Pennsylvania, at casino hotels in Nevada, at an occupational health clinic in Ohio, at an electrical union in New York State, and at an insurance company. Initiatives in Minnesota and Washington State are also described. Sharing the outcomes of initiatives may allow such research to be translated into action on a broader scale.