Medical billing practices have received increasing scrutiny in Australia and worldwide. In 2015, the Australian Government initiated a comprehensive review of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), inc...
This retrospective cohort study used workers compensation billing data from the State Insurance Regulatory Authority to capture elective spinal surgeries in New South Wales from 2010 to 2018. The main...
There were 12 622 spinal surgeries in 9520 patients. While only 2.2% of items were billed above the recommended limits, 38% of surgeries included at least one of the five billing patterns. The average...
Five spinal surgery billing patterns accounted for an additional AU$22.9 million in direct surgical costs from 2010 to 2018....
Opioid use prior to spinal surgery is common among patients with workers' compensation (WC) claims. Extended opioid use for pain management in this population is associated with several adverse outcom...
This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to assess the evidence on the association of preoperative opioid use with stable RTW and RTW within 1-year after spinal surgery....
The authors searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Emcare, CINAHL Plus, Scopus, and Web of Science from inception to 14 January 2023. The authors included studies that compared any preoperative opioid us...
From 2589 records, 10 studies were included, and of these, nine were considered for quantitative synthesis. All studies were observational with eight retrospective cohort and two case-control studies....
This systematic review and meta-analysis shows that preoperative opioid use is associated with a reduction in odds of postoperative RTW by half in patients with WC-funded spinal surgery....
There is a scarcity of literature that examines clinical outcomes through patient-reported outcomes (PROs), minimum clinically important difference (MCID), and recovery ratios (RR) for workers' compen...
WC claimants undergoing MIS-TLIF versus ALIF were propensity score matched to account for demographic differences. Demographics, perioperative characteristics, and PROs were collected. PROs of Patient...
Eighty-four WC claimants, with 50 patients undergoing MIS-TLIF, were identified after propensity score matching. ALIF patients had higher estimated blood loss. MIS-TLIF patients had higher postoperati...
Workers' compensation claimants undergoing either MIS-TLIF or ALIF reported significant improvement in pain and disability. ALIF patients reported superior postoperative physical function and pain. AL...
To evaluate the influence of symptom duration before anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in workers' compensation patients....
A prospective registry was searched for workers' compensation patients who underwent ACDF for herniated disc. Two cohorts based on symptom duration were formed: lesser duration (LD) (<6 months) and pr...
The study included 63 patients. The LD cohort reported improvement in Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System-Physical Function (PROMIS-PF), Neck Disability Index (NDI), and visual an...
Regardless of length of symptom duration before ACDF in workers' compensation patients, the patients demonstrated improvements in disability and arm pain. Patients with LD also demonstrated improvemen...
To compare perioperative characteristics and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in workers' compensation (WC) patients undergoing minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (MIS-...
Patients with WC undergoing 1-level MIS-TLIF were included. Patients were separated into inpatient/outpatient groups and demographically propensity score matched. PROMs included visual analog scale (V...
A total of 216 patients were included (184 inpatient). The inpatient cohort (IC) showed worse perioperative outcomes in multiple measures (P < 0.034; all). The IC improved in all PROMs (P < 0.038; all...
Despite more comorbidities and worse perioperative measures, the IC showed improved PROMs from preoperative to ≥1 follow-up visit, whereas the OC had improvement with only VAS back and leg. The IC sho...
This study investigated whether the time to amputation (TtoA) after a work-related injury had a significant effect on the medical costs accrued in the first year after injury....
Six thousand nine hundred fifty-three person-level workers' compensation claims data from the state of California, USA, from 2007 to 2018....
Multiple quantile regression was used to assess the impact of TtoA on medical costs accrued during the first 12 months after injury. Three time intervals for TtoA were investigated: immediate (0, 1 da...
The median (interquartile range) medical dollars paid per claim during the first 12 months for the study population was $12,414 ($6,324-$29,347). Amputations that occurred during the short-delay time ...
This study presents the impact of TtoA on medical spending in the first year after a work-related injury that results in an amputation. Amputations that occurred within the first month after an injury...
Research has shown how regionally varying labor market conditions are associated with differences in work disability duration. However, the majority of these studies have not used multilevel models to...
Using claims data from five Canadian provincial workers' compensation systems, linear random-intercept models were used to estimate how much variance in temporary work disability duration ('work disab...
Economic region characteristics, such as the unemployment rate and proportion of goods-producing employment, were independently associated with individual-level work disability duration. However, econ...
The findings suggest that while regional labor market conditions matter for work disability duration, system-level differences in workers' compensation and health care are more important factors influ...
The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a new compensable infectious disease to workplaces....
This was a descriptive analysis of Wisconsin COVID workers' compensation (WC) claims between March 12 and December 31, 2020. The impact of the presumption law (March 12 to June 10, 2020) was also eval...
Less than 1% of working-age residents with COVID-19 filed a claim. COVID-19 WC claim rates (per 100,000 FTE) were notably low for frontline industry sectors such as Retail Trade (n = 115), Manufacturi...
The presumption law made benefits accessible primarily to first responders. Further changes to WC systems are needed to offset the individual and collective costs of infectious diseases....
Occupational injuries and diseases are life events that significantly impact an individuals' identity. In this study, we examined the trajectories of self-esteem among victims of occupational injury a...
The Panel Study of Workers' Compensation Insurance conducted annual follow-ups on workers who had experienced occupational injury or disease. A total of 2,000 participants, who had completed medical c...
Three distinct trajectory classes were identified. Total 65.8% of the samples (n = 1,316) followed an increasing self-esteem trajectory, while 31.1% (n = 623) exhibited a constant trajectory, and 3.1%...
Our findings emphasize the diversity of psychological responses to occupational injury or disease. Policymakers should implement interventions to enhance the self-esteem of victims....
Workers' compensation (WC) and litigation have been shown to adversely impact prognoses in a vast range of health conditions. Low-back pain is currently the most frequent reason for WC claims. The obj...
Complete data sets for patients who underwent 1- to 4-level lumbar spinal fusion or decompression alone were retrospectively retrieved from the Quality Outcomes Database (QOD), which included 1-year p...
There were 29,652 patients included in the study. Laminectomy was performed in 16,939 with non-WC status and in 615 with WC, whereas fusion was performed in 11,767 with non-WC status and in 331 with W...
WC status was associated with significantly greater residual disability and pain postoperatively, a lower quality of life, and delayed RTW. Utilizing resources to identify the negative influences on o...
