Three years ago, Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature enacted a major overhaul of the system that compensates workers for job-related injuries and illnesses.
Senate Bill 863, backed by employers and labor unions, affected many specific aspects of the system but was aimed largely at reducing medical costs and redirecting savings into cash benefit increases for disabled workers.
The measure sought to change the long-standing practice in workers’ compensation cases of charging unregulated medical fees for care by tying fees to other publicly financed health care programs.
The medical care portions of the bill appear to be having the desired effect, a new study by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau concludes.
As implemented, the legislation has reduced overall payments to medical providers, the WCIRB found, and “as expected…shifted the total share of medical payments from specialists to primary care providers,” its layman’s language interpretation says.
