Sign up here for our free workers' compensation enewsletters (National or California Edition) to receive weekly news items. Be sure to select the enewsletter of your choice. NATIONAL NEWS: Sedgwick Releases White Paper on Oklahoma Opt Out Laws... Read More
Loosening the rope on the UR/IMR Gordian Knot Karen C. Yotis, Esq., Feature Resident Columnist of the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter , provides insights into workplace issues and the nuts and bolts of the workers' comp world... Read More
By Robert G. Rassp, Esq. The current trend across the country is to require evidence-based medicine for treatment of employees who are injured on the job. Statutory and regulatory mandates are emerging on a state-by-state basis. Stakeholders within... Read More
First Comprehensive Study Evaluating EBM Guidelines in Comp Setting In recent years within the workers’ compensation (WC) arena, proponents of evidence-based medicine (EBM) have contended that managing an injured worker’s care according... Read More
Significant percentage of medical care procedures is unnecessary Much has been written about the explosion of health care costs in the workers’ compensation system. Indeed, most experts agree that medical care expenses now represent more than... Read More
Recent noteworthy panel decisions show that the applicant would be wise to present all relevant medical reports and records, and citations to the MTUS, ACOEM, ODG, or other nationally accepted medical standards to the IMR reviewer, and that when a material... Read More
By John Stahl, Esq. Phil LeFevre, who is a Senior Account Executive, with the Work Loss Data Institute (WLDI) spent much of a recent webinar entitled “Emerging Trends in Workers’ Comp Treatment Guidelines by State: Has the Fox Been Left... Read More
A new analysis of independent medical review decisions issued in 2014 suggests that the medical dispute resolution process mandated by the workers’ compensation reform bill enacted in 2012 is working to assure that the treatment provided to California... Read More
Karen C. Yotis, Esq., a Feature Resident Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter , provides insights into workplace issues and the nuts and bolts of the workers’ comp world. As policymakers, risk managers, and insurers... Read More
By John Stahl, Esq. The double-edged sword regarding using opioids to relieve pain associated with compensable harm is that the workers’ compensation claimants benefit from the effects of feeling little or no pain and health-care practitioners... Read More
A new study by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute estimates that workers’ compensation payors’ utilization review (UR) programs, which rely on evidence-based medicine, combined with the new Independent Medical Review (IMR... Read More
There are five kinds of lies—fibs, excuses, lies, damn lies, and statistics. The CWCI "study"from a political standpoint has to say that the UR/IMR process is a "success." A great deal of energy was put into the political... Read More
The new edition of Workers’ Compensation Emerging Issues Analysis (LexisNexis) is a veritable cornucopia of expert analysis, provocative commentary, and a 50 state survey of workers’ compensation legislation in 2014 As with last year’s... Read More
An examination of ACOEM’s newly revised opioid practice guidelines for treatment of pain By Robert G. Rassp, Esq. We hate statistics but policymakers can’t live without them. For example, 100 million residents of the United States... Read More
Workers’ compensation is no stranger to controversy. In 2009 the well-respected physician Nortin M. Hadler, MD, attacked workers’ compensation as an “evil, wrong-minded, illness-inducing maze that masquerades as social insurance”... Read More