Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda
Perhaps the most practical presentation at this year’s WCRI conference focused on outpatient facility costs. While the content itself was excellent, what was more valuable were the implications for medical spend management. Rebecca Yang PhD provided a wealth of information … Continue reading Facilities, fee schedules, and what should be your takeaway
Read More...The 2021 WCRI Annual Issues and Research confab kicked off today with several excellent presentations – not surprisingly there was a lot about COVID and its impact on employment, injuries, and claims. The conference continues tomorrow – register here if … Continue reading WCRI on COVID and non-COVID claims, treatment delays (not) and drivers thereof
Read More...Those are my two top takeaways from CWCI’s excellent analysis of 2020. I had the opportunity to tune into the virtual annual meeting, and Alex Swedlow was kind enough to walk me through questions on several key issues. (note that … Continue reading COVID claims aren’t expensive, and treatment isn’t being delayed
Read More...Over the last few years I’ve been involved in multiple engagements with workers comp payers where their “vendors” just weren’t performing. Responsiveness was…poor. Problem solving was more client-blaming than taking responsibility. “Proactive” was a word used in stewardship reports and … Continue reading It’s not that hard, people.
Read More...After my posts last week it is clear there’s a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about the CDC’s opioid and chronic pain guidelines. At MCM we take the old-school approach to these things; we focus on the facts. So, here … Continue reading The CDC’s Opioids for Chronic Pain Guidelines; Myths and facts
Read More...International private equity firm CVC Capital Partners will acquire a majority stake in workers’ comp physical management company MedRisk. The Carlyle Group is the current majority shareholder and will retain a “significant stake” along with MedRisk senior management. I could … Continue reading CVC acquires a majority stake in MedRisk
Read More...There’s still lots of money in the peddling of opioids, and lots of misinformation out there about opioid control efforts going too far. Correlated? You tell me. The American Medical Association sent a letter to the CDC claiming “the nation … Continue reading The prescription opioid crisis is far from over
Read More...With extremely rare exceptions, workers’ comp payers – and PPO networks – are doing next to nothing about “quality”. An illustration. Let’s compare two hospitals near Jacksonville Florida. Using publicly available, free data (thanks to RAND), Baptist Medical is pretty … Continue reading Workers’ comp is still in the dark ages.
Read More...After a brutal three weeks of 12 hour work days, finally came up for air late yesterday. The water is receding, so should be able to get back to my posting duties on a regular basis. Let’s get right into … Continue reading MCM is back – and so is the damn coronavirus
Read More...It is times like this that determine if people have souls. To those who say stay out of politics, I say – I wish I could [see comments at link]. What happened last year, and last summer, and last week … Continue reading I wish I could.
Read More...