CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Leading thinkers on workers’ compensation systems present their views on the successes, lessons and mistakes of the past 25 years and the important work that lies ahead in a just-released book by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI).
The book Workers’ Compensation: Where Have We Come From? Where Are We Going? showcases a series of papers from a distinguished and diverse group of experts that were invited to participate in WCRI’s 25th Annual Issues & Research Conference. Cambridge, Mass.-based WCRI marked a milestone at this conference – its twenty-fifth year of providing useful, high quality information on significant public policy issues.
The authors of the papers include prominent workers’ compensation practitioners, policymakers and researchers. The papers examine how systems have changed over the past 25 years, identify key trends and cost drivers, and consider the strategic forces that will shape the features and performance of workers’ compensation over the next decade.
The special volume of papers covers the following topics:
- Workers’ Compensation Before and After 1983, by Dr. Peter Barth, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Connecticut.
- Workers’ Compensation Cost Drivers Through the Years, by Barry Lipton, Practice Leader and Senior Actuary, National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) and Karen Ayres, Director and Actuary, NCCI.
- Workers’ Compensation Insurance Markets and the Role of State Funds, by Robert Malooly, Assistant Director, Insurance Services Division, Washington Department of Labor & Industries.
- Cost Trends and Cost Drivers: An Employer’s Perspective, by Robert Steggert, Vice President, Casualty Claims, Marriott International, Inc.
- Wage Replacement Benefits, by Dr. H. Allan Hunt, Senior Economist, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
- Worker Outcomes: Recovery of Health, Access, and Satisfaction with Care, by Dr. Sharon Belton, Senior Public Policy Analyst, Workers Compensation Research Institute.
- Arc & Architecture of Reform, by Paul Mattera, Senior Vice President and Chief Public Affairs Officer, Liberty Mutual Group.
- Medical Care in the Next Decade: What the Last 10 Years Have Taught Us, by Kathryn Mueller, MD, Medical Director for the Colorado Division of Workers’ Compensation and Jeffrey S. Harris, MD, Methodologist and Guideline Medical Editor, Kaiser Permanente Care Management Institute.
- Workers’ Compensation Medical Management, 1983 to 2008: Innovation, Regulatory Response, and Unfinished Business, by David North, President and CEO, Sedgwick Claims Management Services.
- Workers’ Compensation Administration and Adjudication 1983-2008, by Elizabeth Crum, Deputy Secretary for Compensation and Insurance, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
- Social Policies of Disability Evaluation, by Alex Swedlow, Executive Vice President of Research, California Workers’ Compensation Institute.
- The Relationship Between Workplace Injuries and Workers’ Compensation Claims: The Importance of System Design, by Dr. Leslie Boden, Professor of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health, Boston University and Emily Spieler, Dean and Edwin Hadley Professor of Law, Northeastern University School of Law.
- Preventing Workplace Injuries and Illnesses: Getting More from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, by Michael Silverstein, MD, Assistant Director for Industrial Safety and Health, Washington State Department of Labor & Industries.
The Workers Compensation Research Institute is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit membership organization conducting public policy research on workers’ compensation, health care, and disability issues. Its members include employers, insurers, governmental entities, insurance regulators and state administrative agencies in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as several state labor organizations.
To order this report, visit the WCRI website: www.wcrinet.org.
Contacts
Workers Compensation Research Institute
Richard A. Victor, 617-661-9274