Paduda: CWCI: What's Happening in Golden State, Part 1

Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 0

The brainiacs at the California Workers' Compensation Institute presented the results of their latest research last week.

Joe Paduda

I’m a big fan of CWCI’s work because:

• It is super timely, much more so than any other research organization.
• It covers almost all California claims.
• CWCI’s researchers are very insightful.
• They explain the implications clearly and concisely.

My top takeaways?

COVID is one persistent bugger. The repeated peaks are driven by variants, reminding us that viruses evolve, adapt and persist.

The major jump in January 2022 was driven by omicron. January numbers were 13% higher than the previous peak. Remember delta?

That said, and yet another reminder: To date, COVID claims have NOT been a major cost driver; far from it, and that’s primarily because COVID claims either didn’t incur any payments or didn’t incur significant medical spend.

According to  CWCI’s Rena David, the majority of the “no medical or indemnity claims” may well be mostly those that were reported by the employer when there was a possibility that a worker had COVID exposure but either the claim didn’t go forward or there wasn’t a positive test.

While median costs for LT COVID claims with medical expenses were modest — and a lot lower than non-COVID claim costs — the gap narrowed considerably for claims at or about the 90th percentile for LT claims with medical expense.

But COVID claims were still less expensive than non-COVID claims, as if we needed more proof that COVID claims will not break the bank.

What does this mean for you?

As goes California, so go the rest of us — just a little later.

CWCI's report can be viewed here.

Joseph Paduda is co-owner of CompPharma, a consulting firm focused on improving pharmacy programs in workers’ compensation. This column is republished with his permission from his Managed Care Matters blog.