Today’s issue of WorkCompRecap features the release of a new white paper from Care Bridge International presenting the results of a study that used a large claims database to estimate the true exposure of future medical treatment and costs in Medicare Set Asides for Workers’ Comp claims.
Key findings included that that conventional Set Aside practices greatly inflate costs to claims payers unnecessarily, potentially as much as doubling the cost of Set Asides. A major area of focus was on medications, which account for over half of MSA costs, and the paper examines how actual patterns in usage conflict with MSA forecasts. For instance, the study found evidence of the actual tapering by injured workers of their use of opioids over time, while MSA forecasting policies require lifetime projection of medication use.
Find out more (including a link to the free white paper!) by clicking here!