The factors behind trends in medical payments per claim in 17 state workers’ compensation systems and the impact of legislative and regulatory changes on those costs are examined in this 25th edition of CompScope™ Medical Benchmarks.

The studies examine trends in payments, prices, and utilization of medical care for workers with injuries. They provide analyses of recent costs and trends for policymakers and other system stakeholders, reporting how medical payments per claim and cost components vary over time and from state to state. The studies cover the period from 2017 through 2022, with claims experience through March 2023.

The 17 study states—Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin—represent about 60 percent of the nation’s workers’ compensation benefit payments. Individual reports are available for every state except Arkansas, Iowa, and Tennessee.

The results we report reflect experience on claims through March 2023, including non-COVID-19 claims from the pandemic period (March 2020–September 2022). The study, therefore, provides a perspective of how the pandemic impacted non-COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims in the three years after the start of the pandemic.

CompScope™ Medical Benchmarks, 25th Edition. Roman Dolinschi, William Monnin-Browder, Evelina Radeva, Karen Rothkin, Bogdan Savych, Carol A. Telles, Rebecca Yang, and Terence Cawley. October 2024. WC-24-25 to WC-24-38.

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Copyright: WCRI