This study provides an early look at changes in the Indiana workers’ compensation system following significant legislation in 2013 and 2014 that focused on several key policy concerns. House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1320 addressed hospital costs, which were a key driver of higher-than-typical medical payments in Indiana, by enacting a hospital fee schedule effective July 1, 2014. The legislation also addressed the lower maximum statutory benefit by increasing those benefits in three yearly increments beginning in 2014. The data in this report reflect up to 15 months of experience under the income benefit provisions of HEA 1320 and up to 21 months of experience under the hospital fee schedule.

The study can help policymakers and other stakeholders interested in the system identify current cost drivers and emerging trends. It compares Indiana’s performance with 17 other states (Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin), focusing on income benefits, overall medical payments, costs, use of benefits, duration of disability, litigiousness, benefit delivery expenses, timeliness of payment, permanent partial disability, temporary total disability, and other metrics.

The study also examined how these system performance metrics have changed, mainly from 2010 to 2015, for claims at various claim maturities. Claims with experience through 2016 for injuries up to and including 2015 were analyzed. In some cases, a longer time frame is used to supply a historical context for key metrics.

CompScope™ Benchmarks for Indiana, 17th Edition. Carol A. Telles. April 2017. WC-17-05.

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