Today’s issue of WorkCompRecap features the release of a new report from WCRI that found workers’ comp patients with low back pain reported lower improvements in functional status score following physical therapy than patients covered by other payment systems.
The study was based on a patient-reported outcome measure that assesses the patient’s functional status during the episode of physical therapy. It covers what the functional status score is, why it was used in the study, and how different the change in functional status score was after treatment for workers’ comp low back patients compared with non-workers’ comp patients. WCRI also explores which factors explain the difference in the functional recoveries between workers’ comp and non-workers’ comp patients.