WCRI’s annual confab – a month away

Held again in Boston, WCRI’s annual meeting is one of the better research-focused events on the annual calendar.

It always includes a timely topic as well as a deep dive into key issues explored by the geniuses at WCRI; we can also expect insights into the impact of the economy on comp, updates on WCRI’s Benchmarks analyses, and the always-terrific Alex Swedlow will educate on medical dispute resolution.

This year the focus is on the impact of Affordable Care on work comp, a subject near and dear.  I’m a bit surprised about the timing as PPACA has been the law of the land since 2010; payers who haven’t done their homework and prepared for tighter access, potentially more cost-shifting, revised hospital coding, and strengthened subro efforts by group payers are going to be far behind.

There was much that work comp payers could – and should – have been doing to prepare for PPACA over the last four years; those who have not are way behind. Fortunately, they can gain some insights from the several presentations on the subject at WCRI.

(Here’s a link to a nine-part series on Obamacare and WC; dozens of other posts are here.)

As always, I’ll be reporting from Boston, but won’t be nearly as prolific this time around…if you want to hear the good stuff, see you there.