This 22nd edition CompScope™ Benchmarks study for Florida helps policymakers and other system stakeholders identify current cost drivers and emerging trends in total costs per claim and key components. 

The study compares the performance of state workers’ compensation systems in Florida and 17 other states, focusing on income benefits, overall medical payments, use of benefits, duration of temporary disability, frequency and payments of permanent partial disability (PPD)/lump-sum claims, benefit delivery expenses, litigiousness, timeliness of payments, and other metrics. 

The study also examines how these metrics have changed, mainly from 2015 to 2020, for claims at various maturities. Trends during this period reflect experience after the Florida Supreme Court 2016 decisions in Castellanos and Westphal and the medical fee schedule updates for all types of providers from 2015 to 2017. In some cases, we use a longer time frame to supply historical context. 

Note that the results we report reflect experience on claims through March 2021, including non-COVID-19 claims only from the early pandemic period (March–September 2020). The study, therefore, provides a look at how the pandemic impacted non-COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims in the early months of the pandemic.

CompScope™ Benchmarks for Florida, 22nd Edition. Rebecca Yang. April 2022. WC-22-02.

Copyright: WCRI