Medical Fee Schedules – Virginia Legislature Moves On To Other Things
Virginia’s decision on medical fee schedules will cost the state’s employers dearly. The Virginia State Legislature decided to not act on fixing their Worker Comp medical fees. As I pointed out in previous posts, Virginia is one of the few states without a true pure medical fee schedule.
The state is one of the better ones for Workers Compensation rates. However, there is still room for improvement. As with all states that do not have fee schedules, the majority of the Workers Comp claims value is higher than states with fee schedules.
The % is surprising for Virginia – one of my favorite states. According to the venerable NCCI, 64% of Virginia’s Workers Comp claims cost is due to medical treatment.
In VA’s neighboring states, the % of medical vs. indemnity is 51% of claims costs. That 13% extra has an element of very bad timing as employers are wrangling with the Obamacare mandates.
A great example of what happens when fee schedules are initiated is the state of Tennessee. Their Workers Compensation costs dropped dramatically after a fee schedule was legislated into existence.
How does a state legislate in a fee schedule? They can take a copy of North Carolina’s or Tennessee’s and it is a done deal.
Virginia has always been on the cutting edge in technology, colleges, wineries, and of course, has a large amount of influence from DC in the northern part of the state. They dropped the ball on this one.
One of the reasons/excuses you will hear is that medical practitioners will not see Workers Comp patients. To that, I say BULL.
I have advised on Workers Comp policies in every state in the Union and have never seen this happen. Workers Comp pays well for medical treatment.
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