Touting California’s still-young workers’ compensation reform law as a “pragmatic middle” compromise that seems to be working, two of the top officials responsible for the system talked up some of the reform’s finer points on Thursday.
DIR on Thursday also issued an official update on the reforms in conjunction with their pair’s appearance at the conference.
The update states SB 863:
- Successfully trimmed 3 percentage points off the rate increase, although employers still had to endure an increase of more than 10 percent in their workers’ comp costs;
- Strengthened California’s self-insurance marketplace by lowering the rate of defaults, thereby reducing costs to all remaining self-insurers;
- Reduced ambulatory surgery center facility fees from 120 percent to 80 percent of Medicare’s hospital outpatient fee schedule
via California Workers’ Comp Officials Continue to Praise Reforms.
