WCRI: No Treatment Delay Detected in Non-COVID-19 Claims During Pandemic
A new study from the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute has concluded that injured workers experienced no noticeable delays in medical treatment during the first half of 2020, compared 
with a comparable time period before the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of this study, The Early Impact of COVID-19 on Medical Treatment for Workers’ Compensation Non-COVID-19 Claims, was on non-COVID-19 lost-time claims.
Among the significant findings, the researchers concluded:
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- Fractures and lacerations/contusions occurring in the first half of 2020 and 2019 did not have statistically different times before first medical services for most service types, except for a slightly shorter time before emergency services in 2020. In particular, for lacerations and contusions occurring in the second quarter of 2020, time to emergency services decreased from 0.6 days to 0.4 days on average.
- For soft-tissue claims with injury dates in the first two quarters of 2020, no substantial delay in treatment for most services was observed, with some exceptions. The average number of days to major surgery increased for other non-spinal sprains and strains occurring in the first quarter of 2020—an increase of about 3 days, from 57 days in 2019 to 60 days in 2020.
- For lost-time claims with injury dates in the first two quarters of 2020, the shares of claims across eight types of services remained largely the same as the two first quarters of 2019. However, the study reports a 4-percentage point drop in the share of claims with emergency room services, which is consistent with the expectation that people would want to avoid going to the emergency room because of fear of virus contraction.
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The study tracked changes in key measures describing medical service utilization patterns for workers injured in 27 states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Those states represent 68 percent of the workers’ compensation benefits paid in the United States.
Founded in 1983, the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) is an independent, not-for-profit research organization which strives to help those interested in making improvements to the workers’ compensation system by providing highly-regarded, objective data and analysis.
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