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Division of Workers' Compensation

Workers’ Compensation System Reform Needs and Goals for 2003

Medical - There is an inseparable interrelationship between medical and indemnity issues. We need to:
  • Implement processes to assure that injured workers receive timely, quality medical treatment.
  • Eliminate doctor shopping and address over-utilization and defensive medicine practices.
  • Permit doctors to make the medical decisions.
  • Revise the medical reimbursement system to make it more equitable for all providers.

Indemnity - The current system offers opportunities for financial incentives that encourage ‘undesirable behavior’ which in turn result in worsened case outcomes and higher overall claim costs. We need to:

  • Implement an indemnity benefit system that provides financial incentives for employees who return to work as soon as medically feasible and disincentives for employers who don’t take employees back.

Administration - Features of the present system impede our system from functioning in a self-executing manner. We need to:

  • Streamline dispute resolution processes.
  • Strengthen compliance statutes, enforcement processes, and add fraud and compliance resources to increase compliance.
  • Re-define the role of Division staff in regard to education and dispute resolution.
  • Address carriers who demonstrate trends of non-compliance with statutory provisions.
  • Define what data should be collected, from whom, and how to assure that we will obtain accurate, relevant data from all the parties.