CWCI Reports 16% Increase in QMEs, 17% Increase in Requests for Panels

The California Workers’ Compensation Institute reported that the number of qualified medical evaluators increased 16% from 2019 to 2024, but the number of requests for QME panels increased by 17% over the same period. CWCI said in Bulletin No. 25-5, released Wednesday, that most of the growth in the number of QMEs happened after the Division of Workers’ Compensation adopted a new Medical-Legal Fee Schedule that took effect in 2021. The new fee schedule combined three levels of service for med-legal exams formerly covered by the ML102, ML103 and ML104 codes into a single code that...