WCRI’s Evelina Radeva focused on employee wage replacement, a particularly timely topic given NPR and ProPublica’s ongoing series on the Demolition of Workers’ Comp.

Suffice it to say that PP’s reporters would have greatly benefited from Ms Radeva’s presentation.  Informed sources indicated that reporters Michael Grabell and NPR’s Howard Berkes reporters failed to contact WCRI before this week; a rather stunning oversight on the part of the reppporters.

How any journalist reseaching workers’ comp could neglect to even call the nation’s pre-eminent research organization is beyond me.  They would have been well-served to engage early and often with WCRI and their many experts on all aspects of workers’ comp.

Radeva’s deep dive into weekly wage benefits in IN and NY; Indiana is raising their maximum weekly wage by some 20%, generally aligning Hoosiers with the other 15 states in the study set.  On average, 12% of workers hit the wage replacement cap across all 16 states.

Of note NY also increased their maximum weekly wage several years ago; California has as well.

Peter Rousmaniere raised an interesting question that unfortunately went beyond WCRI’s ability and mission – why is there a cap on the maximum weekly wage?

WCRI Rick Victor answered Peter’s question by noting the impact of tax brackets, the tax-free nature of work comp indemnity benefits and anecdotal information that higher-paid workers get other benefits from their employers that help offset lost wages – while acknowledging there is wide variation among and between the states.

Dr Rebecca Yang discussed the correlation of fee schedules and associated physician billing activity.

Key takeaways

• There’s somewhat of a correlation between low office visit reimbursement rates and higher incidence of physician dispensing.
• evidence from CA indicates that when th FS whas reduced, doctors coding practices did too – more office visits were coded as level 4 and level 5, while the frequency of lower level visits decreased proportionally
• when the fee schedule was subsequently increased, the trend to more upcoding moderated – then resumed when the fee schedule was frozen again.
• this experience was essentially replicated in Louisiana
• in Florida, a change to the fee schedule for facility-based lumbar MRIs essentially increased reimbursement for “unscheduled” MRIs when compared to “scheduled” MRIs.  Perhaps you, dear reader, will not be shocked to learn that “unscheduled” MRIs went from about 1/3 of all lumbar MRIs to over 2/3 over the next few years.

What does this mean for you?

Blunt instruments – such as the physician fee schedules in place in 42 states – CAN BE opportunities for bad actors to game the system, while hurting the good folks.  

Not to say they should be abandoned, but rather it is necessary to think about what will happen if you change fees (or other care-based reimbursement rules) – not what you hope will happen.

Yesterday ProPublica published the first in what is apparently a series of articles on the workers comp systems around the country. This first effort focused on ‘reforms’ and generally indicated these are driven by big employers seeking to cut workers benefits and medical costs.

There is much coverage of grievous injuries, lost limbs, different compensation systems in different states and the role of big business in writing reforms.

I would suggest that writing about reforms, without discussing what’s driving the medical care reforms, is an oversight. And there was precious little discussion of cost drivers, but a lot of discussion about cost control methods, including a tortured passage attempting to describe California’s utilization review process, and the issues inherent therein.  Unfortunately, the coverage of this issue focused on the denials of care, not on the reasons therefore, the process that is used, and why some requests should be denied (more on that in a later post).

Re California, I asked friend and colleague Alex Swedlow for his thoughts on how ProPublica characterized cwci’s research; here’s his perspective…

 The article would benefit from a full discussion on how much and what type of care is approved and denied.  It’s true our study showed that about 91% of the disputed denied treatments are upheld by Independent Medical Review.  What is missing from the article is that denied disputes are only 6% of all treatment reqests and that the California worker’s comp system approves 95% of all treatment.  And the 5% that is ultimatly denied is another story.

The dramatic increase in utilization review in California has been driven largely by the plaintiffs bar, which has been using the IMR process to extend disability. One has to wonder why they have been doing this. In addition IMR increases are driven by by the overuse of drugs, the changes in medical practice patterns since the treating physician presumption was overturned, and the desire on the part of many to address the overtreatment that is rampant in Worker’s Compensation.

Moreover, there was no attempt to explain why employers are seeking to direct injured workers to specific providers or panels of providers. This was presented as a problem for injured workers, when that is inmost instances absolutely not the case.

In fact, the care direction by employers was treated as somehow harming injured workers.

I was excited when I heard propublica I was going to be taking this topic on. I have been impressed by propublica’s work on many fronts. There is much about Worker’s Compensation that needs improvement. Unfortunately, my take on this article is that it is quite one sided, and does not address many of the significant issues that are leading to harm for injured workers, employers and taxpayers. As an introduction to the topic, it is seriously flawed.

While there may be other articles coming in future weeks and months, the expectation that has been set by this article is that the system is somehow tilted in the employers favor. I can assure you that in most states, this is far from reality.

I’d suggest that the story is far from complete. It ignores the rampant profiteering that is the primary driver of the reforms described in generally negative terms, fails to point out the complicity of the claimants bar in extending disability, and completely misses the damage done by profiteering physicians over-prescribing opioids and benzodiazepines and failing to work closely with payers and employers.

Data point- the back surgery scandal in California led to many unnecessary back surgeries, much pain for claimants, and tens of millions in excess costs for employers and taxpayers.

There is no question big business is behind much of these reforms just as there is also no doubt state medical societies are overwhelmingly to blame for rampant abuse of the system in states such as Florida and Maryland.

Data point- the medical society and a drug dispensing firm used the same lobbyist who successfully kept doc dispensing operating in MD thereby increasing costs and extending disabilty.

Finally the story fails to address a critical point – namely the nature of the workforce, employment, injuries and the health care system has fundamentally changed in the last 100 years.

Of course it doesn’t work now. Women are a majority of workers, employment in services long ago overtook manufacturing and industry, Medicare exists, health care systems have radically changed, and the working population is much older fatter and less fit.

It would have been quite helpful to discuss states where things are working well. Washington is one and Ohio has made great strides as well.

What does this mean for you?

If asked by a non-work-comp person about the article and subsequent pieces, you may want to suggest that reality is somewhat different from the world portrayed by ProPublica.

Wcri’s experts summarized their latest research in doc dispensing in the second presentation.

A couple quick takeaways.

First, the efforts to control the price of the repackaged drugs dispensed by physicians has failed as the dispensers have effectively circumvented the rules or statute by creating “new” drugs that are remarkably similar to current medications.

this is particularly problematic in IL and CA.

Second, physicians in Florida were apparently prescribing and dispensing opioids more often than necessary as they stopped prescribing these meds when they could no longer profit from dispensing fees.

Pharmacy costs in CA are growing rapidly however the pain management guidelines seem to have led to a flattening in the growth of the more potent opioids.

CWCI exec dir Alex Swedlow provided his usual excellent debunking of the false claims made by doc dispensing advocates, noting costs are higher and disability duration longer.

The net – doc dispensing research overwhelmingly indicates the practice adds no value and benefits no one but the profiteering docs and their enablers.

In lovely Boston this week for the annual WCRI meeting, a day and a half stuffed with Research findings data and interpretation thereof.

Warning- due to some laptop issues I’ll be posting from my iPhone, and you will undoubtedly see many more typos than usual. A prize to the reader who correctly totals all the typos over the next two days.

The conference begins with the usual WCRI disclaimer that the organization presents research results and does not take policy positions. I’m happy to infer what the results mean and what we should do about the findings.

The lead off session addressed the impact of ppaca on work comp, specifically cost shifting from group to work comp.

Olesya Fomenko Ph.D did the research on the topic with a focus on ACOs and their impact on case shifting from group to comp. Much of the discussion revolved around capitated vs fee for service reimbursement and the financial motivations of the treating provider. In a capitated system, the doc gets paid the same amount for all non-occ care, but makes more for treating occupational conditions as they are not covered under he capitation arrangement.

The key finding is the “growing use of capitation is likely to increase the number of soft tissue injuries seeking payment under WC.”  Obviously this is going to be more common in states where capitated plans are more common.  The research indicates a potential increase in soft tissue claims in the 12 or so states with a quarter or more of workers covered by capitated plans – CA NY PA MI MA etc.

If capitation increases, there may well be more states with characteristics indicating a higher propensity to shift cases from group to comp. Capitation has declined over the last decade, but the growth of acos is likely reversing this trend.

Whats not visible in the data is the question “were soft tissue claims under reported previously, and now that there are stronger financial incentives to correctly categorize claims, they are now correctly categorized?”

With WCRI’s annual confab coming up Thursday am, meetings in Boston tomorrow, and lots going on already this week, here’s a quick summary of goings on from all over the health care world.

Kudos to Liberty Mutual’s (and fellow Syracuse University grad) Tammy Camillone; Tammy was just promoted to run Liberty’s bill review operation.  With the pending transition from Coventry’s 4.0 to Strataware, this is a big job – but one well within Tammy’s capabilities.

Healthplan membership climbed by 5.6 million members from Q3 2013 to Q3 2014. That’s not surprising; what is surprising is the big gains in ASO (administrative services only, or self-insured health plans for larger employers) business for Kaiser and Anthem.  While most growth was in the individual lines, the jump in employer plans indicates things are looking good for health plans across a broad spectrum of products. 

A study just published in JAMA indicates the risk of overdose from prescribed opioids may be significantly greater if the opioids are long-acting (e.g. OxyContin) vs short-acting.

To our knowledge, the findings of the present study provide the first evidence that the risk of unintentional overdose injury is related to the prescribed opioid’s duration of action. If replicated in other cohorts, our findings suggest that clinicians weighing the benefits and risks of initiating different opioid regimens should consider not only the daily dose prescribed but also the duration of opioid action, favoring short-acting agents whenever possible, especially during the first 2 weeks of therapy.

Thanks to Steven Feinberg MD for the tipoff.

Finally, there are good people in the world, and there are people who are not.

Goings-on in Maryland work comp highlights this all too well.  The physician dispensing advocates, their pawns at the Maryland medical societies, and their hired hitmen are all on the wrong side of right.

In pursuit of the almighty dollar, these slimeballs are quite willing to say anything, do anything, lie about anyone, distort any facts and compromise whatever morals they may once have had just so they can keep feeding at the trough.

A trough filled with dollars hard-earned by taxpayers and employers.