The 19th edition of this study examines changes in the California workers’ compensation system after the policy changes implemented in recent years.

Senate Bill (SB) 863, a comprehensive reform legislation, went into effect in January 2013. Results in this report reflect the state’s system performance five years after the implementation of SB 863. Assembly Bill (AB) 1244 and SB 1160, two major fraud-fighting measures, were enacted in January 2017. In addition, the drug formulary required by AB 1124 was fully implemented in April 2018.

The study compares the performance of state workers’ compensation systems in California and 17 other states, focusing on costs, income benefits, overall medical payments, use of benefits, duration of temporary disability, frequency and payments of permanent partial disability/lump-sum claims, benefit delivery expenses, litigiousness, timeliness of payment, and other metrics. It also examines primarily how these system performance metrics have changed from 2012 to 2017, for claims at various claim maturities. In some cases, a longer time frame was used to supply historical context.

CompScope™ Benchmarks for California, 19th Edition. Rui Yang. April 2019. WC-19-02.

Copyright: WCRI