Workers compensation is the only health care payer system that has seen a year-over-year decline in hospital inpatient discharges for more than a decade in California, according to new research findings published Wednesday by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute.
The report, which examined inpatient care utilization trends between 2012 and 2022, shows that workers comp continues to represent an extremely small share of in-state hospitalizations, accounting for 0.3% of all inpatient discharges in 2022.
Researchers said that legislative and regulatory reforms enacted in 2012 designed to improve injured worker care and establish enhanced utilization controls helped to improve inpatient hospitalizations, which at the time was the No. 3 cost driver in California’s workers comp system.
The report looked at more than 28.7 million inpatient stays under four different payment systems – workers compensation, Medicare, Medi-Cal and private health insurance coverage. Workers comp accounted for 0.4% of those hospitalizations.
Over those 10 years, injured worker hospital stays fell 51.1%.
The report also said the state saw a decline in workers comp inpatient surgeries due to the number of spinal fusions and joint replacement procedures now performed on an outpatient basis.