Report: Fixed-Amount Fee Schedules Create Slower Increases in Comp Costs

Hospital outpatient payments are lower and growing more slowly in states with fixed-amount workers’ compensation fee schedules, according to a new study by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Workers Compensation Research Institute. Researchers compared hospital payments for a group of common outpatient surgeries for injured workers in 36 states from 2005 to 2021. The data revealed that hospital payments per outpatient surgical episode in states with percent-of-charge-based fee regulations were 81% to 190% higher than the median of the study states with fixed-amount fee schedules in 20...