Medical Payments Climb 5.5% to $1.9B for 2021

After falling to $1.8 billion in calendar year 2020, aggregate medical payments rebounded in 2021 and increased about 5.5% to $1.9 billion, according to a new report by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California. The WCIRB attributed the increase in aggregate payments to increases in average payments per transaction last year. And the increase in payments per transaction “was largely because of the 2021 fee schedule updates to medical-legal and evaluation and management services.” While the approximately 559,000 claim total in 2021 was unchang...