and for the first time in forever I’m not there…apologies to my friends at WCRI; a Board meeting conflicted with this year’s annual meeting.
Good news is the estimable Stuart Colburn Esq. provided an excellent summary of the session on climate change’s impact on workers’ compensation at WorkCompCentral (subscription required). LWCC’s Jill Leonard and Jeff Rush at CJPIA.
courtesy WCRI
[btw I’m eagerly awaiting news that several colleagues, long climate change deniers, have “evolved” their thinking to acknowledge the reality that is human-caused climate change.]
Stuart also reported on Dr Olesya Fomenko’s research into medical inflation, noting there’s been a steep rise in facility prices (no surprise to regular readers of this blog…a few relevant posts are here).
All told, hospital inpatient outpatient and ambulatory facility centers account for over half (!!!) of work comp medical spend. These costs have also been growing almost three times faster than physician expenses.
Think about that – facilities – which do what physicians tell them to do – are increasing their prices three times faster than physician services. Docs admit patients, order treatments/surgeries/PT/medications/rehab, write return to work orders…they are directly and solely responsible for the medical care your injured workers get and their return to work.
Yet you are allowing hospitals and ASCs to charge you and your employer customers more and more every year, while refusing to significantly increase what you are paying the people who actually care for those injured workers.
In word, this is dumb.
What does this mean for you?
Do. Your. Job.
