Texas Workers' Compensation Health Care Network Report Card Published

AUSTIN, TX (CompNewsNetwork) - The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) Workers' Compensation Research and Evaluation Group has published the first annual report card on the performance of Workers' Compensation Health Care Networks as required by House Bill 7 (79th Legislature, Regular Session, 2005).

The report card is the first to be published since the initial networks were certified by TDI in early 2006. Contained in the report card is a comparison of network and non-network claims on a variety of measures, including: health care costs; utilization of care; satisfaction with care; access to care; return-to-work outcomes; and health outcomes.  Future report cards will include comparisons between individual networks. These comparisons were not feasible in the first report card due to the small number of participating networks at the time of analysis.

Data used to measure performance of the networks includes: workers' compensation medical billing data collected by TDI; results of an injured worker survey conducted by the University of North Texas, Survey Research Center; and results from a February data call issued by TDI to 27 networks. Currently, there are 31 certified Workers' Compensation Health Care Networks offering services in 213 counties in Texas.

The network report card is posted on the agency website at:

http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/reports/wcreg/documents/wcreportcard07.pdf

Information on the networks certified by TDI, their service areas and their contact information can be found at: http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/wc/wcnet/index.html.

For more information contact: WCResearch@tdi.state.tx.us