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CWCI Completes Regional Score Card Series With an Analysis of Claims Experience in the Sierras

Oakland - The California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) has released a new California Workers’ Comp Regional Score Card that examines the claims experience of workers living in the Sierras and compares it to the experience of injured workers from the rest of the state. The Sierra Score Card is the last installment of an eight-part series initiated last fall that uses subsets of data from CWCI’s Industry Research Information System (IRIS) database to profile claimant characteristics and highlight data compiled from claims filed by residents of different regions of the state. Each Score Card provides a breakdown of claims from the highlighted region by industry sector, premium size, claim type (medical-only, temporary disability, permanent disability), nature and cause of injury categories, and primary diagnoses. Several exhibits, including the percentage of claims with permanent disability, claim closure rates, attorney involvement rates, top prescription drugs dispensed, medical development by Fee Schedule Section at 12 and 24 months post injury, medical network utilization rates, notice and treatment time lags, and 12-, 24- and 36-month loss development tables compare results for the specific region against those for the rest of California. Many exhibits also provide the combined statewide results, offering a wealth of detailed data not only on workers’ comp claims experience for the region, but for the entire state.

The Sierra Score Card uses data from 32,000 accident year 2005–2015 claims filed by residents of 11 counties that comprise much of the Gold County and the mountainous areas that border Nevada from Sierra County south to Death Valley. Though the region accounts for only 1.7% of all California workers’ comp claims, the Score Card reveals a number of interesting facets to those claims. For example:

    - more than half of all claims from the region involve workers employed in just four industries (construction, retail trade, healthcare, and hotel and food services);

    - three diagnoses that represent just 4% of the region’s claims account for 20% of all loss payments;

    - the Sierras have the highest percentage of temporary disability claims in the state but permanent disability claims are less prevalent; and

,   - despite relatively low attorney involvement rates, short claim durations, and very few lien claims, over the past decade the Sierras have experienced some of the fastest growing claim costs in the state. 

All eight Regional Score Cards and the summary Bulletins are available to CWCI members and research subscribers who log on to www.cwci.org, while others may purchase them from www.cwci.org/store.html.

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