Dataset Information

Industrial Injury Hospitalizations Billed to Payers Other Than Workers' Compensation: Characteristics and Trends by State.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To describe characteristics of industrial injury hospitalizations, and to test the hypothesis that industrial injuries were increasingly billed to non-workers' compensation (WC) payers over time.

Data sources

Hospitalization data for 1998-2009 from State Inpatient Databases, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Study design

Retrospective secondary analyses described the distribution of payer, age, gender, race/ethnicity, and injury severity for injuries identified using industrial place of occurrence codes. Logistic regression models estimated trends in expected payer.

Principal findings

There was a significant increase over time in the odds of an industrial injury not being billed to WC in California and Colorado, but a significant decrease in New York. These states had markedly different WC policy histories. Industrial injuries among older workers were more often billed to a non-WC payer, primarily Medicare.

Conclusions

Findings suggest potentially dramatic cost shifting from WC to Medicare. This study adds to limited, but mounting evidence that, in at least some states, the burden on non-WC payers to cover health care for industrial injuries is growing, even while WC-related employer costs are decreasing-an area that warrants further research.

SUBMITTER: Sears JM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5346499 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Industrial Injury Hospitalizations Billed to Payers Other Than Workers' Compensation: Characteristics and Trends by State.

Sears Jeanne M JM Bowman Stephen M SM Blanar Laura L Hogg-Johnson Sheilah S

Health services research 20160503 2

<h4>Objective</h4>To describe characteristics of industrial injury hospitalizations, and to test the hypothesis that industrial injuries were increasingly billed to non-workers' compensation (WC) payers over time.<h4>Data sources</h4>Hospitalization data for 1998-2009 from State Inpatient Databases, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.<h4>Study design</h4>Retrospective secondary analyses described the distribution of payer, age, gender, race/et ...[more]

PMID: 27140591

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Project description:Workers' compensation (WC) insurers collect large amounts of industrial hygiene (IH) data in the United States. The data collected is not easily accessible for research or surveillance purposes. Individual WC insurers are using computerized systems to standardize and store the IH data, leaving a gap in standardization among the different WC insurers. This study sought to standardize IH data collection among WC insurers and to determine the feasibility of pooling collected IH data. IH air and noise survey forms were collected from WC insurers. Data fields on the forms were evaluated for importance and a study list of core fields was developed. The core study list was presented to an IH review panel for review before finalization. The final core study list was compared to recommendations published by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) and the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA). Fifty-nine forms from 10 organizations were collected. Industrial hygienists from research organizations, state-based WC insurers, and private WC insurers participated in the data field evaluation and on the review panel. For both air and noise survey forms, more than half the data fields (55% and 54%, respectively) were ranked as "essential." Three of the four fields in the worker and control observations category ranked "essential" were found less than half of the time on both types of survey forms. The study list of core data elements consisted of more than half of the data fields from both the air and noise survey forms. Three additional fields were added based on the comparison to the ACGIH-AIHA recommendations. Data fields essential to standardizing IH data collection were identified and verified. The "essential" data fields will be made available and have the potential to be incorporated into WC insurers electronic IH data management systems. Future research should focus on other IH survey forms, such as those used in ergonomic assessments and specific chemical exposures, and methods to transfer data fields to electronic platforms.

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Dataset Information

Industrial Injury Hospitalizations Billed to Payers Other Than Workers' Compensation: Characteristics and Trends by State.

Objective

Data sources

Study design

Principal findings

Conclusions

Publications

Industrial Injury Hospitalizations Billed to Payers Other Than Workers' Compensation: Characteristics and Trends by State.

Similar Datasets

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