BOSTON — A long-running pressure point in workers compensation, access to care is becoming more difficult as provider shortages, hospital closures and broader health system disruptions ripple into occupational medicine, panelists said Tuesday at the Workers Compensation Research Institute’s Issues & Research Conference.
Delayed care can slow recovery and return-to-work timelines and increase claim costs, making care coordination “huge in workers comp,” moderator Randall Lea, Waltham, Massachusetts-based senior research fellow at WCRI, told attendees as he framed the discussion around practical tactics employers, payers and regulators are using to keep injured workers moving through the system.
Dr. Mary Capelli-Schellpfeffer, Boston-based vice president and national medical director for Liberty Mutual’s workers compensation unit, said access challenges are no longer confined to rural areas. Even in major metro regions with abundant medical resources, she said, workers comp patients are increasingly being turned away — a dynamic she described as “enormously significant” for the system…