Springfield, IL – The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Comission recently announced that medical fee schedule rates will increase 1.69% in 2013, which is less than half the rate of medical inflation (CPI-M). As the chart below shows, the fee schedule amounts are now running 37% below medical inflation over the life of the fee schedule.
|
Annual Adjustments |
|||
|
Effective date |
CPI-Medical |
CPI-U/ |
Difference |
|
February 1, 2006 |
4.37% |
4.90% |
0.53% |
|
January 1, 2007 |
4.26% |
3.80% |
-0.46% |
|
January 1, 2008 |
4.52% |
1.97% |
-2.55% |
|
January 1, 2009 |
3.26% |
5.37% |
2.11% |
|
January 1, 2010 |
3.31% |
-1.48% |
-4.79% |
|
January 1, 2011 |
1.03% |
1.01% |
-0.02% |
|
September 1, 2011 law change |
|
-30.00% |
-30.00% |
|
January 1, 2012 |
3.19% |
3.77% |
0.58% |
|
January 1, 2013 |
4.05% |
1.69% |
-2.36% |
|
Total |
27.99% |
-8.97% |
-36.96% |
Section 8.2(a) of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act provides that, each year, fee schedule rates shall increase or decrease by the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index-U (CPI-U) in the previous year.
The 2013 fee schedule was posted, but some problems were identified, and the vendor, Optuminsight, took it down to work on it. Optuminsight is working on adding code descriptions and posting the correct surgical codes to the Hospital Outpatient and ASTC fee schedules, so please view the schedule with caution. The IL WCC will announce when this work has been completed.
In the meantime, users are encouraged to contact the IL WCC if they identify any issues with the 2013 schedule.
Source: IL WCC