Medical Care Utilization Trends Down

New research from the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) reveals that utilization of medical care by injured workers is down in the majority of the 17 states analyzed.
The studies cover about 60% of all workers’ compensation benefit payments nationwide through March 2023, including non-COVID-19 claims from the pandemic period of March 2020–September 2022.
“Besides strained hospital capacity and avoided medical care by many people out of fear of COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic, waves of increased COVID-19 cases and medical provider shortages may have also affected the delivery of medical care. Even in the few cases where utilization in certain states has begun to rebound, we do not see it reaching pre-pandemic levels yet,” said Sebastian Negrusa, vice president of research for WCRI.
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Preliminary data points to a nearly 1% decrease in workers’ comp private carrier direct written premium through the first half of 2024, compared with direct written premium through the first half of 2023, NCCI said in an analysis published last week.
The calendar year 2024 private carrier direct loss ratio through the first half of 2024 is 48%, which is one point higher than that observed through the first half of 2023, according to the blog post.
NCCI said workers comp lines are expected to have another strong year with continued underwriting gains in 2024, comparable to recent years, and a net premium volume similar to that observed in 2023.
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The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation is taking about $750 million the bureau’s state insurance fund assets from Western Asset Management Company, which is under regulator scrutiny over trading practices.
According to reports, the BWC board of directors voted 8-0 to sack Western.
Ohio BWC had $18.6 billion in total assets as of June 30.
News broke in August that the SEC was investigating a star manager’s trades.
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