California Proposes Updates to its Workers Compensation Policies
November 1, 2009 – California workers’ compensation reforms in the past have been successful at radically reducing the costs of the system. The California Department of Industrial Relation’s Division of Workers’ Compensation suggets that such reforms have saved over $50 billion since 2003. After the last reforms were enacted, medical costs also declined.
However medical costs for workers’ compensation cases have begun to increase again, and so a new 12-point plan to reduce medical costs is being put into place. Some aspects of the plan are governed by policies already enacted. Of ones not yet in place, some are in legislation at the moment, and some are proposed for 2010.
Among goals of the program are to make workers’ compensation more streamlined, providing claimants an extra five business days in which to make their claims and making it easier to submit forms without time consuming rejections.
In an attempt to control the costs of actual medical care, the plan will tighten the guidelines on treatments and drugs covered under workers’ compensation, as well as providing employers an option for selecting a network of doctors that will reduce or eliminate the costs of review of the utilization of funds.
Cost reporting will be improved with updates to the Workers’ Compensation Information System, and e-billing will decrease overheads for tracking and filing paper forms.
The full details of the plan are available on the DWC website at http://www.dir.ca.gov/dwc/DWCPropRegs/WCIS_Regs/WCIS_Regulations.htm.
|