Report Details Drop in Medical Cost Per Claim After SB 863

Medical payments per claim with more than seven days of lost time in California decreased after the implementation of Senate Bill 863, in contrast to increases or stable trends in medical costs seen in other states, according to a new report. The data, from the Workers Compensation Research Institute’s CompScope medical benchmark report for California, compared claims from 2011 to claims from 2014 at 36 months of experience. Medical payments per claim decreased 5.8% over that period, the largest drop seen among the 18 states included in the CompScope report. Twelve of the 18 state...