COVID-19 Impact on Workers’ Compensation and Auto Markets

Predicting COVID-19’s impact on the workers’ compensation and auto markets is a fluid exercise, as the impact felt will vary by company. However, much will be based on when and how we as a nation resume life post-pandemic. Here are the trends I’m currently observing: Unemployment is skyrocketing: US unemployment claims soared to 6.648 million

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40% of CA Utilization Review Providers Non-Compliant with New Law

I was stunned to read in a recent WorkCompCentral article (subscription required) that only 38 of the 63 firms currently providing workers’ compensation utilization review (UR) services in California are URAC accredited. Per California Senate Bill 1160, the deadline for mandatory accreditation was July 1, 2018. WorkCompCentral’s reported figures on July 9 mean that 40

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Upcoding Crackdown: Federal Efforts Fail to Benefit Private Insurers

For more than a decade, taxpayer-funded health care programs have seen a steady uptick in higher-paying billing codes. Office visits, outpatient services, and emergency room care have all been billed at progressively higher reimbursement codes, raising fees by billions of dollars. Many providers contend the shift is the result of sicker patients coupled with the

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The Road to Optimal Opioid Prescription Length

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the United States is $78.5 billion a year. Most of that burden is related to workplace costs, such as lost productivity, prolonged time on disability, and increased work disability claim costs. To help combat this crisis, organizations

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The Future is Now – Telemedicine in the Marketplace

For years, telemedicine has been touted as the next frontier in healthcare. Based on data from multiple health systems, the future has arrived. Some of the country’s largest and most prestigious health systems such as Kaiser Permanente, NewYork-Presbyterian, and Johns Hopkins now boast robust telemedicine programs. At Kaiser Permanente, virtual patient encounters now outnumber in-person

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Big Differences Between Three ICD-10 Coding Systems

Here are some interesting facts about ICD-10 that may not be commonly known. International Classification of Diseases (ICD) was created by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has served the healthcare community for over a century. While most industrialized countries moved to the ICD’s “tenth revision” – ICD-10 – 30 years ago (1983), the United

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