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Studies released Thursday by the Workers Compensation Research Institute show how the adoption of drug formularies in five states affected workers compensation costs. The studies looked at the effect of formularies on prescription drug utilization and associated costs in the Arkansas, California, Indiana, Kentucky and New York comp systems. All five states adopted prescription drug formularies between 2018 and 2019.…

An appeals court in Illinois on Wednesday granted a disability award to a firefighter who suffered a stroke but may have had pre-existing conditions. A City of East Peoria for more than 20 years, Charles Melton in 2020 applied for an occupational disease disability pension, alleging a “work-related stroke brought on by exposure as a firefighter” and that he was…

Since 2014, the percentage of indemnity claims involving a major surgery in the first two years has declined one percentage point per year, falling from 28% of the 2014 claims to 23% of the 2019 claims, according to a study released Monday by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute. The study tracked treatment patterns in the California workers comp system for…

Climate change has hit states’ workers compensation systems, as more severe weather patterns, wildfires and other incidents have resulted in lost worker hours and had detrimental effects on mental health, among other things, a panel of experts said. After a disaster, employers must manage recovery efforts that are outside their usual operations, and employees can face more hazardous environments at…

Research released last month shows that food industry worker injury and fatality rates increased at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, triggering regulators to focus on historical problems in food production safety. While pandemic-related pressures on food manufacturing and distribution caused injury rates and fatalities to rise problems existed before COVID-19 hit, the authors of the six-year study said. The…

Vertical integration in medicine is driving up patient care pricing in workers compensation, and provider consolidation is not necessarily translating to improvements in patient outcomes, according to research from the Workers Compensation Research Institute. The study released Thursday, Impact of Medical Provider Consolidation on Workers’ Compensation Payments, examined the impact of provider vertical integration on comp payments, showing how doctor…