Friday catch-up

Another crazy busy week is coming to a close, and its time to catch up on what I missed, didn’t get to, or just figured out.

I know what you’re doing this weekend…you’re going to be poring over NASI’s annual report on workers’ compensation which just hit the virtual newsstand – and you need to get a (free) copy. For those unfamiliar with the report, it is the only comprehensive, national report that provides detailed, state-by-state financials on medical and indemnity spend by type of payer. Along with a treasure trove of other great info.

The big news – total work comp medical paid in 2016 dropped (!) 0.3% from the previous year. Work comp spent just over $31 billion on medical in 2016.

What’s driving the decrease? I say a big contributor is reduced spending on pharmacy, which I’ve been tracking for 15 years.

Notable – WorkCompCentral’s William Rabb teased out one major issue – the worker-unfriendly government in Michigan’s efforts to cut benefits for workers resulted in a 15% drop in benefit payments. Ouch.

Kudos to Accident Fund’s United Heartland for talking about the good work they do helping patients recover. I’ve had the honor of working with folks at AF and United Heartland in the past – they are good people focused on doing the right thing.

Work comp bill review and case management company Genex’ acquisition of Priority Care Services will cause a bit of disruption in the specialty services sector. Sources indicate PCS will be the “home” of specialty services in the Genex/Mitchell operation, with everything but IME and Pharmacy consolidated under PCS.  More on this later, as there are repercussions…

Healthcare costs are almost $20,000 per family. While premiums in the ACA marketplaces have stabilized, the reality is premiums would be significantly lower if the Administration hadn’t stopped making cost sharing payments and Sen. Marco Rubio R FL hadn’t cut off the funds needed to help start-up insurers compete with the big boys. Rubio’s action singlehandedly killed off several new insurers founded to offer competitive insurance…so much for the “free market”!

Last, this drives me NUTS – managers, execs, supervisors who use the “I” word all the time. There is no “I” dammit. There is only “we”.  This is not about you, your feelings, your work, your anything.  It is about everyone working towards the same goal, and when you say “I did this” or “My results were X” you denigrate the contributions of others, make them less likely to work to achieve future goals, and send a signal that you have a fragile ego that needs stoking.