Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda
NCCI, with the assistance of payer medical directors (shout out to Employers’ Dwight Robertson MD and David Deitz MD among others) presented on 4 research topic areas late Thursday afternoon. After a long day of great talks (this NCCI has … Continue reading NCCI’s PM sessions – hard core research geeks only
Read More...Another deal goes down, more clarity around IMRs, more data on the impact of the Affordable Care Act – it’s been busy. First up, Select Medical’s purchase of Concentra. In what looks to have been a pre-emptive move, Select Medical announced … Continue reading Friday catch up
Read More...The estimable Gary Franklin MD, Medical Director of Washington Labor and Industry, weighed in with passion and precision at CWCI; Gary’s message was simple and straightforward: Workers injured on the job get worse and worse and worse, unlike people with … Continue reading Poor quality of care in work comp and the impact on SSDI and medicare
Read More...Much clarity was brought to the IMR process, costs, efficiency, and IMR filers by the next speaker, CWCI SVP and CFO Rena David. Speaking about 2014 data, Rena noted: 4.1 percent of treatment requests were “IMR eligible” There were about 261,000 … Continue reading California’s IMR program – clarity at last.
Read More...Sorry, dear reader it’s been a very busy week. here’s what I;ve been tracking. At WCRI, Rick Victor’s now the CEO and his apparent replacement has been named. While that’s good news, what’s better is longtime WCRI exec Ramona Tanabe … Continue reading The Thursday catch up
Read More...Here’s what happened over the MLK weekend… Kudos to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D Minn) for her efforts to reduce Medicare drug prices. She introduced a bill that would allow CMS to negotiate drug prices, a seeming no-brainer. Reasons to support the … Continue reading Tuesday catch-up
Read More...I’ve decided to split my predictions into work comp stuff (where I do most of my work) and health care stuff not directly related to work comp. Here’s my health care predictions… 1. Health care cost inflation will remain low. After … Continue reading 2015 health care predictions
Read More...Once again I’ll head out on a limb with saw firmly in hand… 1. Aetna will NOT be able to sell the Coventry work comp services division. I’ll double down on last year’s prediction: even if the giant health plan … Continue reading Predictions for work comp in 2015
Read More...I haven’t looked into CorVel for some time now, but a tipoff from WorkCompWire got my interest – specifically a passage that read: Revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2014 were $124 million, a 4% increase over the $119 million in revenue in … Continue reading CorVel’s quarterly revenues up, profits down
Read More...A bit more information on my least-favorite subject – Medicare Set-Asides. After my post last week on NCCI’s recent report on MSAs, I heard from a couple folks seeking to clarify/educate/help me understand that there’s a bit more to the picture, … Continue reading MSAs – there’s more to the story
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