text: Commission to Study Workers' Compensation Hospital Fee Schedule and Outpatient Surgery Procedures
  October 31, 2000 Christine Baker
  Commission To Study Workers' Compensation
  Hospital Fee Schedule and Outpatient Surgery Procedures
  SAN FRANCISCO -- The Commission on Health and Safety and Workers' Compensation (CHSWC) today approved a proposal to study the workers' compensation Hospital Fee Schedule and outpatient surgery procedures.
  The California workers' compensation system includes an Official Medical Fee Schedule, mandated by Labor Code Section 5307.1, used for payment of medical services required to treat work-related injuries and illnesses. Many employers and insurers criticized the medical fee schedule in use in 1993 as outdated because it did not cover many common procedures and did not apply to inpatient hospital charges. The Official Medical Fee Schedule was updated effective April 1, 1999 and included an Inpatient Hospital Fee Schedule, or IHFS.
  The IHFS takes into account cost and service differentials for various types of facilities based on the federal Medicare Fee Schedule. As in Medicare, reimbursement for each hospital differs depending on a number of factors that have an impact on the hospital's costs and services. Since the implementation of the IHFS, the Division of Workers' Compensation has received several letters from hospitals and physicians expressing their dissatisfaction with the current IHFS.
  The Commission's study will evaluate the adequacy of the Inpatient Hospital Fee Schedule in California. It will include a description of current difficulties with the IHFS, an analysis of the cost impact, a modeling analysis of outcomes of possible IHFS changes, and recommendations for revising the IHFS and establishing an outpatient surgery fee schedule.