This study can help policymakers and other stakeholders interested in the Minnesota workers’ compensation system identify current cost drivers and emerging trends in a wide variety of workers’ compensation cost components.

It compares Minnesota’s performance with 17 other states (Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, 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 examines how these system performance metrics have changed, mainly from 2010 to 2015, for claims at various maturities. Claims with experience through 2016 for injuries up to and including 2015 were analyzed. In some cases, a longer time frame was used to supply a historical context for key metrics. Information from other WCRI benchmarking studies was also included to provide a more complete picture of the Minnesota workers’ compensation system.

The study encompasses a two-year snapshot of the Minnesota system after the implementation of several system changes in 2013 that were directed at medical, indemnity, and vocational rehabilitation benefits, and prior to the implementation of new hospital inpatient fee regulations that became effective in January 2016. Although the study does not isolate the independent effect of each of the changes on the workers’ compensation metrics reported here, it provides a useful tool for monitoring changes in Minnesota in the context of these broader public policy changes.

CompScope™ Benchmarks for Minnesota, 17th Edition. Sharon E. Belton. April 2017. WC-17-10.

Copyright: WCRI