Texas Workers' Compensation Health Care Network Report Card Published

Austin, Tx (WorkersCompensation.com) - The Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) Workers’ Compensation Research and Evaluation Group has published the annual report card on the performance of Workers’ Compensation Health Care Networks as required under Chapter 1305, Texas Insurance Code.

The report card is the sixth to be published since TDI certified the initial networks 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. The 2012 report card also compares the performance of certain political subdivision networks authorized under Section 504.053, Texas Labor Code, with networks certified by TDI and non-network claims.

Overall, networks certified by TDI continue to show improvements in a variety of measures, including medical costs, return-to-work outcomes, and health outcomes, compared to previous report cards, and networks generally produced better return-to-work and health outcomes compared to non-network claims. Non-network claims continued to have lower average medical costs than network claims, but cost reductions in networks have closed that gap is now 7 percent compared to 17 percent in 2011.

Data used to measure performance of the networks includes: workers’ compensation medical billing and payment data collected by TDI for injuries that occurred between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011; results of a survey of these injured employees conducted by the University of North Texas Survey Research Center; and results from a February data call issued by TDI to 30 networks. Currently, certified Workers’ Compensation Health Care Networks offer services in 250 Texas counties.

The network report card is posted on the agency website at: http://www.tdi.texas.gov/reports/wcreg/documents/2012_report_card.pdf.
Information on the networks certified by TDI, their service areas, and contact information can be found at http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/wc/wcnet/index.html.