Medical Payments Fall 9.4% to $1.8B in 2020

Medical payments fell to $1.8 billion in calendar year 2020, down 9.4% compared to the approximately $2 billion in medical payments for 2019, according to a new report from the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California. The WCIRB said the significant decline in overall medical payments was largely driven by a sharp drop in the number of claims during the pandemic. The approximately 559,000 claims filed last year were down 14.5% compared to the 654,000 claims in 2019. The total number of paid medical transactions fell about 11.4% to 13 million in 2020 from about 14 mil...