California WC Industry

 

In California, the cost to resolve a workers’ compensation claim just went up.

Recently, the California Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) enacted a new medical-legal fee schedule. Under the revised California Code of Regulations, Title 8, 9793, 9794 and 9795, California has moved from a hourly rate to a flat fee rate for all Qualified Medical Examinations (QMEs) and Agreed Medical Examinations (AMEs) to combat a geometric increase in hourly rate billings for AMEs and QMEs. Under certain circumstances, the new regulations will impose a $3/page surcharge for records provided in excess of 200 pages (or in excess of 50 pages for supplemental medical-legal examinations).

Citing cost containment concerns, this new regulation became effective April 1, 2021 and applies to medical-legal evaluations where the examination occurs on or after April 1, 2021, medical-legal testimony provided on or after April 1, 2021, and supplemental reports requested on or after April 1, 2021. Employers and their insurers in California must now be careful to adhere to these new regulations, or expose themselves to the $3/page surcharge. For some organizations, those costs could be significant.

In fact, one source pegs those surcharges to be approximately $32,000,000 after only seven (7) months!

To combat this latest concern, saavy employers and their insurers are seeking tech-based solutions to control these costs. Implementing a document review solution to help automate this process and ensure avoidance of the $3/page surcharge now makes sense. If that software provides value in light of the new regulations that will pay for itself, even better! This is where Veloci-Docs enters the scene.

Veloci-Docs is document review software created by medical-legal professionals for use specifically in the medical-legal context. Veloci-Docs helps users to organize, review, and summarize voluminous electronic document sets into concise and precise documents ready for downstream consumption. 100s of pdf documents and 1000s of pages, handled quickly with a few clicks of the mouse.

One of the best features of Veloci-Docs for California users is its ability to identify and hide duplicate and blank documents. Using its powerful OCR engine (96% effective), Veloci-Docs will identify any duplicate or blank documents the user is reviewing. Then, those will be hidden from view (but not deleted). Once hidden, the user knows the true number of pages contained in the documents they are reviewing. This means they can control the number of pages being submitted for the QME or AME, avoiding the $3/page surcharge.

Given the excessive nature of the $3/page surcharge, Veloci-Docs will literally pay for itself for most users.

Here’s how:
Assume your organization needs 20 examinations per year. For each examination, your team submits 300 pages of documents per examination for review. Under the new regulations, 100 pages of each examination will now be subject to the $3/page surcharge.

100 pages/exam x $3/page x 20 examinations/year = $6,000/year in excess surcharges!!

That means additional charges of $300/examination or $6,000/year in surcharges alone. That does not even address the new flat fees you will incur under the new regulations. Fees under the new regulations will add up fast, especially for larger organizations!

Veloci-Docs users will not spend more money; they will save money! Fees for Veloci-Docs are reasonable. Veloci-Docs provides you the chance to insulate your organization from these new regulations and the $3/page surcharge. The faster you can get Veloci-Docs integrated with your process, the more money you can save.

You can watch an informative video here on how Veloci-Docs can save California law firms time and money  starting now!

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