Benefits and Earnings Losses for Permanently Disabled Workers in California: Trends Through the Great Recession and Effects of Recent Reforms

Dworsky, Michael; Seabury, Seth A.; Neuhauser, Frank W.; Kharel, Ujwal; Euller, Roald

doi:10.7249/rr1299

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(43 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Because the data set includes only closed claims, the most recent years in it may not yet contain complete information on all claims that are still working their way through the system, leading to right censoring. Recent work analyzing claim durations in California's workers' compensation system determined that right censoring is a relevant concern even three years after the injury, particularly for claims with permanent disabilities, which take longer to resolve (Dworsky et al, 2016;Dworsky, Rennane, and Broten, 2018). We therefore set the last injury cohort as 2010 to allow sufficient time for claims to resolve and close before the time of data extraction, whether through settlement or otherwise.…”

Section: Stakeholder Interview Methods and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Settles in Workers' Compensation? An Analysis of How Trends in Claim Settlements Relate to Workers' Compensation Benefit Changes in Oregon

Rennane¹,

Cherney²

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Who Settles in Workers' Compensation?An Analysis of How Trends in Claim Settlements Relate to Workers' Compensation Benefit Changes in Oregon W orkplace injury is costly to workers and firms (Leigh, 2011). Workers' compensation is designed to ensure that workers are compensated for medical costs and wage losses associated with a workplace injury and, at the same time, to limit the firm's exposure to the overall costs associated with the injury. The process of determining benefits and adequate compensation can be costly and complicated. Sometimes, the benefit process evolves smoothly; at other times, the process can lead to extended negotiation or disputes to determine the appropriate benefit and can potentially result in a claim settlement in lieu of benefits.In this report, we explore how permanent workers' compensation benefits and settlements interact. In some cases, a worker who settles relinquishes the right to pursue permanent partial disability (PPD) or other indemnity benefits. As a result, changes in the value of the PPD benefits a worker anticipates receiving could affect that worker's decision to settle.We examine a policy change in Oregon as a case study. In 2003, Oregon Senate Bill 757 (SB 757) made substantial changes to PPD benefits in the Oregon workers' compensation system, simplifying the evaluation system and the benefit-calculation process (see Oregon Legislative Assembly, 2003). As a result of this simplification, some claimants received substantially higher PPD benefits than they would have prior

show abstract

Section: Stakeholder Interview Methods and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Settles in Workers' Compensation? An Analysis of How Trends in Claim Settlements Relate to Workers' Compensation Benefit Changes in Oregon

Rennane¹,

Cherney²

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The proportion of workers-injured or otherwisethat remain employed over time decreases due to exits from the labor force. Previous studies have shown that injured workers face lower future employment rates, possibly due to their work-related injuries (Seabury et al, 2011;Dworsky et al, 2016). 7 Figure 4.19 reports the proportion of injured workers in each injury year that are employed in the first eight quarters after injury.…”

Section: Work Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dworsky et al (2016) compared the percentage of California workers receiving permanent partial disability benefits who were working in each quarter following injuries occurring in 2005-2012 with a group of uninjured workers. About 85 percent of the uninjured workers were working after 12 months compared with about 62 percent of injured workers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Medical Care Provided to California's Injured Workers: Monitoring System Performance Using Administrative Data

Wynn¹,

Mulcahy²,

Liu³

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Following reforms in 2003-2004 to the California workers' compensation (WC) program, expenditures for medical care provided to injured workers declined for several years, only to begin rising again in 2007. By 2012, total medical spending had increased 32 percent relative to 2007 levels despite a reduction in the number of WC claims. Senate Bill (SB) 863 made additional reforms intended to improve the efficient delivery of high-quality care to injured workers. The Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC) asked RAND to identify the factors that explain the spending increases and to explore the feasibility of using medical data from the Workers' Compensation Information System (WCIS) for ongoing monitoring of system performance and in-depth analyses of selected issues affecting system performance. This report provides a framework for understanding changes in medical spending levels and provides the results from our analysis of WCIS data for 2007-2012. It establishes a baseline that can be used in a future study to evaluate the impact of the SB 863 provisions. The report should be of general interest to stakeholders in California's WC system and in other WC programs. This research was undertaken for CHSWC under contract 41036037. It was conducted under the umbrella of RAND's Justice Policy Program.

show abstract

“…But findings were disappointing, as they estimated that only 16 percent of losses were replaced by workers' compensation benefits. Dworsky et al (2016) used the same methods as Reville, Bhattacharya, and Weinstein (2001) to study trends in earnings losses and workers' compensation benefits paid before, during, and after the "Great Recession" in California. This study, funded by the California Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation, probes the impacts of the recession during a period that also saw considerable policy changes in benefits for permanently disabled California workers.…”

Section: Wc Income Benefits Loss Replacement Rate = _________________mentioning

confidence: 99%

Workers' Compensation: Analysis for Its Second Century

Hunt¹,

Dillender²

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Benefits and Earnings Losses for Permanently Disabled Workers in California: Trends Through the Great Recession and Effects of Recent Reforms

Cited by 3 publications

References 33 publications

Who Settles in Workers' Compensation? An Analysis of How Trends in Claim Settlements Relate to Workers' Compensation Benefit Changes in Oregon

Who Settles in Workers' Compensation? An Analysis of How Trends in Claim Settlements Relate to Workers' Compensation Benefit Changes in Oregon

Medical Care Provided to California's Injured Workers: Monitoring System Performance Using Administrative Data

Workers' Compensation: Analysis for Its Second Century

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About