Changing Medical Landscape Will Affect Workers’ Comp Insurers

Attendees of the Casualty Actuarial Society annual meeting were told that pre-reform measures already have started to impact workers’ compensation, and insurers and actuaries need to prepare for a shifting medical landscape.

“The stimulus bill, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, included funding for development and implementation of electronic health records (EHR),” Joseph Paduda, principal, Health Strategy Associates LLC and writer of the blog Managed Care Matters, told attendees at the meeting in Boston in mid-November. “EHR supports clinical decision-making, physician order entry for scripts or for imaging, and clinical data capture and sharing. Providers will all have access to the same amount of information instantly.”