Impact of Treatment Guidelines in Texas

By Philip S. Borba, Christine A. Yee

September 1, 2012 Related Topics: Treatment Guidelines

In 2005, the Texas legislature passed House Bill 7, which ushered in several medical management initiatives. Among them was one by the Texas Department of Insurance, which announced that, effective May 1, 2007, use of the Official Disability Guidelines – Treatment in Workers’ Comp was required for the treatment of all injured workers not covered by a certified health care network.

In this report, we present our findings from investigations into how the use of evidence-based treatment guidelines affected the medical care received by injured workers and the duration of their temporary disability spells.

Impact of Treatment Guidelines in Texas. Philip S. Borba and Christine A. Yee.
September 2012. WC-12-23.

Copyright: WCRI

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Research Questions:

  1. Did the utilization of medical services change after the evidence-based treatment guidelines became effective?
  2. Did the proportion of injured workers who received certain types of medical services change?
  3. Was there a change in the number of visits? If there was a change in the number of visits, was there a response by providers to increase or decrease the number of services per visit?
  4. Did injured workers experience a change in the duration of temporary total disability benefits?

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