Move Over, Richard Kiley. Here’s Why We Want to Combine Public Health Data with Health Care Data

Is it time to publicly merge workplace injury data with with health care delivery and re-engineer the system for greater efficiency. Prevention versus economic fiduciary interests of corporate American maybe be challenge. The economic savings in the long run may provide as major cost savings for workers' compensation insurance companies. Today's post was shared by RWJF PublicHealth and comes from www.rwjf.org

On reflection, we think this goal isn’t so quixotic. We’ve been thinking more and more about bridging the worlds of health care delivery and public health—how those two systems relate to each other and can reinforce each other in ways that improve health outcomes for populations and for individuals. And we see harnessing data as part of the path to that goal.

Currently, we’re seeing an explosion of data production from all sectors in health and health care and an increasing interest in harnessing that data for all sorts of purposes. The recent Health Datapalooza conference—which is hosted by another collaborator on this News Challenge, the Health Data Consortium—saw 2200 people gather to explore health and health care data and its uses.

Expectations Must Adapt to Change

In the "old days" the US workers' compensation system,  meet or "exceeded exceptions." Looking backward we recognize an aggressive and dedicated work ethic, that the government, private industry and labor," managed to embrace into a "Grand Bargain" called Workers' Compensation. 

Times have changed. In the past the corporate and executive workplace was a formal "tie and jacket" environment. Seasoned member always gripe how things have changed for the worse and long for a return to the comforting and familiar "good old times." 

Vermont Universal Health Care to Embrace Workers Compensation

A two-stage bill in Vermont is geared to establishing a single-payer medical health care system that would include medical for workers' compensation claims.

The legislation " proposes to set forth a strategic plan for creating a single payer and unified health system. It would establish a board …. ; establish a health benefit exchange for Vermont as required under federal health care reform laws; create a public-private single payer health care system to provide coverage for all Vermonters after receipt of federal waivers.”

The plan proposes covering all workers' compensation claims:

"(3) To the extent allowable under federal law, the Vermont health benefit exchange may offer health benefits to employees for injuries arising out of or in the course of employment in lieu of medical benefits provided pursuant to chapter 9 of Title 21 (workers’ compensation)."

"(c) If the Vermont health benefit exchange is required by the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to contract with more than one health insurer, the Vermont health benefit exchange shall determine the appropriate method to provide a unified, simplified claims administration, benefit management, and billing system for any health insurer offering a qualified health benefit plan. The Vermont health benefit exchange may offer this service to other health insurers, workers’ compensation insurers, employers, or other entities in order to simplify administrative requirements for health benefits."

Nationally, advocates to improve the delivery of medical benefits to injured workers have urged federalization of the medical delivery system into a single payer approach through universal health care. The proposed Vermont single payer system is a unified state approach to the co-ordinated delivery of medical care.

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The Great Health Care Debate

As the US Senate signals the beginning of the floor debate of the proposed health care legislation, a new chapter is about to be written in the Workers' Compensation medical benefit delivery system. If any of the five proposed bills, or prodigies of any, are enacted into law the nation's workers' compensation will be impacted.

The health care delivery system of the nation's compensation system is a patchwork of acts enacted in 1911 that have changed little since then. While modern medical science has move at the speed of light to develop new methods for diagnosis and new modalities for treatment, workers' compensation has stood still like a classic picture in the museum of time. While the US compensation system was crafted in 1911 to provide immediate and remedial medical care for industrial accidents in a swift and summary manner, the recognition of occupational diseases, and their enormous complex etiology, has been met by what some critics observe as a "deny and delay" strategy by Industry resulting in a failure of the system to provide benefits in an efficient and effective manner. Compounding the issue is the massive maize of collateral benefits of global insurance systems that have now resisted inappropriate benefit shifting to them and are mandating reimbursement for improper initial payments in the past and protection from looting in the future, ie. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The workers' compensation stakeholders have been silent participants in the drafting of the new health care legislation and have sat quietly on the sidelines. Only on the eve of the US Senate Finance's Committee's debate on the Rockefeller Amendment, for mandated broad and potentially universal coverage, was the chorus of compensation defense attorneys' heard to rally support in opposition without offering a creative solution.

The proposed legislation will embrace massive change for the nation's medical delivery and involve every individual, business, hospital and doctor. Yet to be determined is whether every employer will be mandated to provide health insurance. While the number of the nation's uninsured has continued to rise in epidemic proportions, the "safety net" for those who have been denied medical benefits under the workers' compensation systems have also grown logarithmically.

Issues remain open as the floor debate opens on health care. To be debated are many issues including: mandatory coverage; the extent of business involvement; financing the program; a public plan; government subsidies; and the cost of care. Any or all of these immense issues will ultimately impact the national workers' compensation system as it now exists.

As the unpredictable health care legislation is debated in Congress, the legislators will hopefully take notice of how other industrial countries have met the challenge to treat workers. The European countries, where workers' compensation had its geniuses almost a century ago, have already solved the problem through the enactment of universal health care.

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For more on workers' compensation and national health care reform click here.

State Acts to Restrict Medical Care

The State of NJ has proposed sweeping regulations to limit the payment of medical care under automobile insurance policies, and this action is seen as yet another signal that workers' compensation medical delivery may become even further restricted. In an effort to reduce insurance premiums, the NJ Department of Banking and Insurance, has proposed massive changes in the manner and method that doctors may bill for medical treatment and diagnostic procedures and has restructured the process for appealing a denied claim.

The State claims that medical delivery costs are soaring. It has been reported that for every premium dollar that insurance companies receive, they end up spending $1.23 on medical benefits. The regulations are designed to reduce medical services and produce a profitable insurance product.

Furthermore, the purpose of the regulations are to limit legal costs. The sate reported that in one instance a contested medical  resulted in the payment of $375 in medical benefits, but the legal costs awarded for that recovery were $3,380.

The regulations prohibit the use of innovative radiological diagnostic testing. "X-ray digitization or computer aided radiographic mensuration reported under CPT 76499 or any other code are not reimburseable under PIP."

The comment period for the new rules runs thorough early September 2011. The impact of the regulations is to reduce medical care and diagnostic procedures that will impact resulting workers' compensation benefits. Ironically providing the best medical benefits available would seemingly comply with the intent of the compensation act and ultimately economically benefit the employer by producing a healthy workforce, The process of cost cutting will only ultimately degrade the medical delivery component of workers' compensation even further.

Related articles

• That Used to Be Comp (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
• An Employer Is Responsible To Compensate For Pain (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
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• The Debt Ceiling and Workers Compensation (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)

Medical Costs Soar in Workers' Compensation

The cost of medical care has increased tremendously according to a recently issued  report. The NCCI (National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc.) reports an increase in medical costs from 40% in the early 1980s to almost 60% currently.

NCCI reports that the increase appears to be national, "....Furthermore, although there are differences in the medical share by state, the change in the relative mix of states has had very little impact on the estimated countrywide share of medical and indemnity benefits."

The national workers' compensation medical delivery system has now become a focus of attention in light of the prospects of an overhaul of national health care system as medical costs continue to put American businesses at a economic disadvantage with foreign competitors. James Kvaal, in his article, "The Economic Imperative for Health Reform," highlights that "...ever rising medical costs are threatening to drive an unsustainable explosion in the national debt." Higher insurance premiums result in lower wages or lack of medical coverage all together and the loss of preventive care.

The costly and inadequate workers' compensation medical delivery system provides a fragmented approach to medical care. The system's focus should treat current medical conditions and provide for preventive care. The administrative costs savings in providing global coverage will translate into reduced delivery costs and a healthier work force. Some of the extra savings could be well spent on much needed medical research to avoid the need for costly medical care.

A Once-In-A-Generation Chance

The NY Times today called for passage of the Senate version of health care reform and salvage the opportunity for important change in the nation’s health care plan. More emphatically, the Senate version provides an opportunity for change in the way the nation’s century-old workers’ compensation system provides for the delivery of medical care in occupational disease claims.

The paper’s editorial rightly observes that one botched election in Massachusetts, a State that has already met the issue of universal health care, should not encumber the rest of country with horrors of a failed system. The Senate version of health care reform contains an opportunity to experiment and explore the opportunities on embracing the delivery of medical care and medical monitoring into a coordinated and national framework under the Medicare program. In the end it will be able to establish a unified epidemiological database to help prevent and treat occupational illnesses and lead the nation to a safer and healthier work environment.

The efforts of Senator Mat Baucus (D-MT) has made to craft an occupationally health care program has the potential for being the most extensive, effective and innovative system ever enacted for the delivery of medical care to injured workers. Libby Care [see Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Sec. 10323 pp. 2222-2237] , and its envisioned prodigies, will embrace more exposed workers, diseases and geographical locations than any other program of the past. An ancillary benefit will be the integration of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for the advancement of greater worker safety through organized data collection and research.

Caring for those who have been the victims of occupational disease has been an illusive goal of the nation’s patchwork of workers’ compensation systems for over a decade. Occupational diseases were a supplement to the compensation system that developed when Industry tried to shield itself from the emerging economic liabilities that silicosis was generating.

History reflects that the system just didn’t work. The longest running tort, asbestos reacted illness, plagued the workers’ compensation system and produced a  plethora of problems that only created more delay and denial of medical care for injured workers.

Economically the costs of direct costs for occupational illnesses and diseases continue to soar. Unfair cost shifting continues. A study in the year 2000 indicated that direct costs amounts to $51.8 Billion per year for hospitals, physicians and drugs. Workers’ compensation was reportedly covering only 27% of the costs and taxpayers were sharing un even share of the burden. The costs of occupational disease amounted for 3% of the gross national product.

The problems of under-reporting of occupational illnesses and disease even compound the reporting the true reality of the issue even further. The recent NY Times and Nebraska Appleseed investigative reports indicate that true numbers are hard to come by because of the fear and intimidation injured employees suffer in reporting claims.

Since the enactment of workers’ compensation in 1911, there has never been a greater opportunity to provide meaningful change to make the workplace healthier and safer. Congress and the President Obama should take advantage of this one-in-a-lifetime chance and make the Senate version of health care reform the law of the nation.

Click here to read more about health care and workers' compensation.

Trust Through Transparency

A significant concern of employees, employers, and insurance companies is whether or not the new COVID-19 vaccines are safe to take. Vaccine efficacy is going to have a significant impact on the decision-making process.

GM halts Corvette delivery for brakes, air bags

Today's post was shared by Take Justice Back and comes from www.usatoday.com

GM halted delivery of the 2015 Corvette until it can find and fix potential problems with parking brakes and air bags. No recall was immediately announced.(Photo: Chevrolet) General Motors slammed the brakes on a month's worth of Chevrolet's high-power Corvette halo car to prevent any faulty air bags or improperly installed parking brakes from getting into customers' hands. About 800 2015 Corvettes — most of them at dealerships, GM says — are on hold because they may have been built with only one of the rear parking brake cables installed properly. Another 2,000 2015 Corvettes at dealers could have a faulty part that attaches the air bag to the steering wheel hub. GM halted shipments of additional 2015 Corvettes from their Bowling Green, Ky., factory to prevent any more potentially defective cars from getting into the sales network. The two actions — a stop-delivery order to dealers and a stop-ship order to the factory — aren't recalls. In fact, they are the actions automakers take to try to prevent recalls by trying to catch the problem cars before they are sold. GM said on Friday that it "has not publicly issued a recall on the 2015 Corvette." But such "stop" orders often don't catch all the vehicles, and a recall follows anyway. The move comes at an especially sensitive time for GM for several reasons: •It can't afford to tarry resolving safety issues. Federal regulators have GM under a microscope after it was fined for failing to...

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Jobs, Growth & Universal Healthcare

Robert Reich, in a 3 minute video, states the reasons why jobs, growth and universal healthcare are needed to expand the US economy. 

This is reflective of the issues plaguing the nation's workers' compensation system, especially soaring medical delivery costs (administrative, clinical and pharmaceutical).  

Read more about "universal healthcare" and workers' compensation:

Universal Medical and Workers' Compensation: It's Not

Feb 01, 2013

Medical care afforded by workers' compensation delivery systems will ultimately be merged into a universal national program, despite all the opposition along the way. My friend, and cycling inspiration, who keeps me trying to ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Our Journey Forward on Occupational Medical Care - Workers ...

Nov 09, 2012

Going forward it is imperative that a universal medical program be established to provide medical treatment for all work-related occupational injuries and exposures. The delay and denial of medical benefits to those who suffer ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Path to Federalization: A National Workers Compensation System

Jul 05, 2012

Those efforts demonstrate a commitment to bring the nation ever closer to a universal care medical program incorporating the entire patchwork of workers' compensation medical delivery systems. The US Supreme Court has ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Vermont Universal Health Care to Embrace ...

Mar 05, 2011

Vermont Universal Health Care to Embrace Workers Compensation. A two-stage bill in Vermont is geared to establishing a single-payer medical health care system that would include medical for workers' compensation ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Building A Workers’ Compensation System That Works

State workers’ compensation systems are beginning to suffer from the impact of the national economic downturn. Economically induced factors are compounding the underlying issues that previously generated a growing level of critical stagnation. The combination of this dynamic now threatens the very core of the workers' compensation system and endangers its extinction.

Prior to the accelerated national economic downturn, the patchwork of State and Federal compensation programs were besieged by an assault of complex legal issues emerging during the last decade. These included: the reimbursement of collateral medical source issues, ie. CMS and MSP (Medicare Secondary Payer Act) ; greater difficulty in litigating complex scientific issues; a costly and inefficient medical benefits delivery system and a transition of “fault” into the administrative system.

As the national economy began to fail there was a surge of new administrative issues challenging the programs. These include: higher unemployment; self-imposed limitations on administrative cost by the States; and the increase of potential insolvency by the insurance industry. The filing of claims in NJ over the first 3 weeks of 2009 have already reflected a 27.5% decrease which is projected over the last reported year, 2007. Judicial salaries have been frozen and new State employees have been taken out of the State pension system. State budgetary freezes have caused a reduction of the hiring of critically needed new personnel such as the appointment of Deputy Attorney Generals to represent State funds, ie. Second Injury Funds. Hearing calendars have been reduced because of lack of personnel to appear.

Banking and investment house scandals continue. Insurance carriers have been threatened by insolvency including the giant AIG which has continued to require the infusion of “bail out” capital to float. Liberty Mutual has announced the plan to sell certain of its markets including the Wausau line of business.

As President Barack Obama reported, “The economic news has not been good.” The hope of a new beginning that prevailed at the recent inauguration signals creative opportunities for the reinvented and modernization of the entire workers’ compensation system. The implementation of technology and video conferencing initiated in Social Security hearings may be required to be utilized to lower expenses and increase efficiency. It is cheaper for the government to move electronic images rather than personnel. Technology advanced hearing systems and claims processing will be required to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Instead of hiring more personnel and establishing more offices, technologically advanced centralized hearing centers will be utilized. These will result in a lower carbon footprint and lower administrative costs.

Workers’ Compensation is not only an economic issue, it is also a human issue. Medical delivery and its associated costs remain problematic in the present workers’ compensation system. A single payer national medical insurance system program is a viable solution. Immediate delivery of medical benefits to injured workers will result in an administrative cost saving and allow for the introduction of medical monitoring, prevention programs and research grants to treat and cure industrial disease. The new system will require greater transparency and accountability.

The failing national economy is a catalyst for change. The ailing workers’ compensation program must obtain the course of treatment that it requires to rebound into a healthy and robust system once again.

Doctors, Patients and Opioid Abuse

Getting to the real reasons why doctors prescribe opioids to opioid abusers is an apparent challenge to the essence of the nation's workers' compensation system. In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine it is revealed that doctors continue to prescribe opioids to abusers because of "...Recent changes in medicine's philosophy of pain treatment, cultural trends in Americans' attitudes toward suffering, and financial disincentives for treating addiction ..."

Until the workers' compensation medical delivery program furnishes treatment delivery in an effective and efficient manner the challenge of drug addiction will tragically continue.

More about drug addiction

Workers' Compensation: Physicians Petition to Limit Opioid Abuse

Jul 27, 2012

Pharmaceutical reform has been a major topic of interest and reform efforts nationally in the workers' compensation arena. More particularly the alledged abuse of opioids have received particular attention. Several physicians ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Whose to Blame for Opioid Abuse in Workers' Compensation Claims?

May 24, 2012

A recent Texas case holding an employer liable holding an employed liable for a fatal opioid overdose arising out of work-related event highlights again that, the workers' compensation medical delivery system just isn't ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Nursing Home Abuse: Drugging of Patients

Jan 28, 2012

Nursing Home Abuse: Drugging of Patients. Many seriously injured workers end up living in nursing homes for convenience and care. Workers compensation act usual pay for nursing home care, but do they really know what ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

Workers' Compensation: Workers Compensation Insurance ...

Oct 28, 2009

The Wall Street Journal reports today about a claim against pharmacies as a result of customer drug abuse. In the State of Nevada a case is pending that may confer liability upon a drugstore for the consequences of an ...

http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/

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Technology - Efficiency - Uniform Procedure

For decades the NJ Workers' Compensation administrative law system has had to adapt to meet the social, political, economic and technological changes of a changing world. The well thought-out proposals by the NJ State Bar Association (NJSBA) are a starting point to the beginning of a new wave of discussion and change.

Sidetracked By Drugs

New York Mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The core health care delivery problems that exist in workers' compensation are not being driven by the alleged excess prescriptions of pain relief medication. That is a symptom of a system that has been derailed.

The focus of major employer and insurance initiatives of so-called reform legislation in multiple jurisdictions has been to reduce the delivery of prescriptive pain relief. Actually, that is an enforcement issue only that globally exists in the health care industry. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is working diligently to identify and database the few prescribers and physicians involved.  A national effort modeled after the New York process would go a long way to curtain excessive and unorthodox prescriptions.

To use the prescription drug abuse issue to attack workers' compensation generally is merely sidetracking the real problem with the medical delivery system which is the global denial of compensability of workers' compensation claims by employers and insurance carriers merely to delay and avoid payment of medical benefits.

The recent decision in Federal Court recognizing RICO violations by an insurance carrier, the employer medical expert, and the employer itself, puts the real focus on the problem.  That decision demonstrates the need to get the workers' compensation train back on the tracks and redirect the system so that it pays benefits to injured workers in an efficient and timely basis.

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NJ Senate Passes Workers' Compensation Collective Bargaining Legislation

The NJ Senate passed an historic legislative proposal that will change the way benefits are delivered in work related injuries in NJ. S2447 provides for a collective bargaining arrangement that allows for delivery of benefits without the necessity of formal intervention before the NJ Division of Workers' Compensation, that will however remain an option in the process. 

As amended, this bill permits, but does not require, groups of employers establishing or participating in Taft-Hartley trust funds to purchase workers’ compensation insurance as a group or to apply to the Commissioner of Banking and Insurance for approval to enter into agreements to pool their workers' compensation liabilities for the purpose of qualifying as members of a group plan for self-insurance. A "Taft-Hartley trust fund" is a labor-management, jointly administered fund established by collective bargaining to provide employee benefits such as medical benefits or pensions.

Sanders Proposes Universal Health Care: The Path to Federalization

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has announced a plan to move forward with a Universal Medical Care program in the US. The concept will absorb the nation's ailing the medical workers' compensation delivery system into a universal care system.

Innovation is Necessary to Meet the Challenge of COVID in 2022

COVID is the most extensive occupational exposure event in the history of the United States. Workplaces are now primed for a massive wave of compensation claims due to the Omicron variant. A recent study provides a potential opportunity for employers and insurance companies to reduce their risk exposure through early sequencing and treatment proactively.

Congressional Action on Workers’ Compensation

From coast to coast, the patchwork of state workers’ compensation systems continues to be under constant scrutiny for change. The problems seem global in characteristic as the frustrations continue to rise. The fate of the entire system may result in the effort to enact or defeat legislation to embrace a new national commission on workers’ compensation.

The States universally enacted Workers’ Compensation in 1911 in an effort to replace civil litigation with an administrative system. The approach was to provide a remedial system to injured workers in a summary manner while providing a cost effective approach for employers. Despite the efforts to reduce benefits and limit access States are struggling to maintain the system in one fashion or another. Rumors are spreading that New York, a former industrial jurisdiction, may join the list of radically modifying their system.

The once touted as a “no fault” system, the nation’s workers’ compensation has been besieged by efforts to assert more restrictive requirements for benefits. Medical delivery has stagnated in a complex world of etiology and evidential proof of occupational claims. The cost of soaring medical care, once shifted easily to collateral health insurance companies and the Social Security system, has been met with convoluted reimbursement efforts. Large corporations and public entities that in the past were able to provide an additional stream of revenue to injured workers are now rapidly drying up and or become non-existent under bankruptcy laws. State governments, that maintain the administrative system, are now facing a monumental shortage is revenue and are closing down operations and converting some for criminal and economic sanctions to merely benefit the general state revenues. The few remaining second injury funds have become insolvent and the future remains bleak as the premiums committed to finance these agencies and programs become depleted.

On January 22, 2009, Representative Joe Baca, a Democrat from California, introduced legislation (HR635) to establish a second National Commission on State Workers' Compensation Laws [Commission]. The first Commission was established under the Nixon administration in accordance with the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The new legislation that is now supported by representatives of injured workers lacks co-sponsors. Opposing the legislation is a long line of Industry based employers including the Americans Manufacturing Association and the National Chamber of Commerce.

John Burton, the former chair of the 1971 Commission, in a recent interview, commented that many of the present systems do not even comply with threshold recommendations of the original Commission and that many of the present programs face some serious challenges.

Patrice Woeppel, Ed.D., author of Depraved Indifference the Workers' Compensation System, has called for a single payer medical system to embrace both work and non-worker related injuries. By allowing the employer and insurance carrier to control the medical care she indicates, results in "restricting treatment to the cursorily palliative" or delay and denial of treatment to the injured worker. Additionally medical plan administrative costs of duplicative and wasteful.

As the national health care debate continues and the final legislation unfolds, the workers’ compensation medical delivery issues and wage replacements for temporary and permanent disability may become incorporated into direct or ancillary legislation. A second Commission, in one form or another, aimed at nationalizing the workers compensation system, may indeed become a reality.

The Debt Ceiling and Workers Compensation

President Barack Obama talks with members of his staff in the Oval Office following a meeting with the Congressional Leadership, July 7, 2011. Pictured with the President, from left, are: Chief of Staff Bill Daley; Rob Nabors, Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs; Bruce Reed, Chief of Staff to the Vice President; National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling; Jason Furman, Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council; Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew; Senior Advisor David Plouffe; and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

As The Debt Ceiling Crisis continues to fester in a sluggish economy, the attack on public health programs like Medicare and Workers Compensation remain targets of cuts. Basically the medical delivery system just can't be supported and is imploding bringing down the entire house of cards.

Workers' Compensation, a patchwork of state programs, has a target on its back. The system is a massive Ponzi Scheme that now lacks a base of economic support and can no longer provide delivery of benefits in either the arena of medical or indemnity. It is the promise to Labor that just can't be kept.

Angry critics from cost to coast have targeted the system with a plethora of lame excuses why the system is ailing and why it is too costly to maintain as presently structured. While Industry continues somewhat to the downfall of workers' compensation, it cannot be blamed entirely. The compensation system was build on the foundation of the Industrial Revolution and a massive insurance scheme of the early 1900s that no longer realistically exists. Medical science has been transformed from the ancient French medical practice of the use of leaches, no anesthesia and zero sterilization, to an era of modern medicine with modern modalities, complex diagnostic and treatment and research protocols.  

As the debate unfolds in Washington DC on the debt ceiling, the focus with become more directed upon public entitlement programs and benefits that need to be modernized and revamped to meet the current changes to the economy and health of the nation. One of those targets will ultimately be workers' compensation and this time the politicians should look at it not in the light of negativity but rather for all the positive benefits workers compensation brings the nation.

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Rate Your Workers' Compensation Doctor?

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has initiated serveral programs to improve the delivery of medical care. HHS no longer wants to pay hospitals for "medical mistakes" and has now announced a program to rate the medical facilities.

“CMS’ goal for updating and enhancing the Hospital Compare Web site is to provide usable and accurate information about hospital performance to providers and communities that will encourage hospitals to excel in the quality of care they provide,” said CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems. “With these new enhancements, consumers and health care providers will be able to look at individual hospital mortality scores. We hope that this new information will cement the Web site’s role as a key driver in improving the quality and reliability of care in the nation’s hospitals.”

This interesting concept is one that may interest the workers' compensation insurance companies as well as governmental agencies that regulate the programs. The opportunity to provide a comparison of services may likely lead to the delivery of better medical care for injured workers.