Here are the trends I’m currently observing:

Unemployment is skyrocketing: US unemployment claims soared to last week—far above the expected 5 million. We have had weeks in a row of unemployment claims and have lost about 10% of the workforce in that time. The graph below, which reflects only the first week of the three (the next two were both significantly higher) shows the scale of this crisis. Less workers means less premium for carriers, less taxes for the government, and less volume for providers of workers’ compensation services. James Bullard, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has ,which is higher than the ever hit at 25% unemployment. Bullard’s prediction would mean a 30% drop in new claims for workers’ compensation in general, as already evidenced by many noteworthy companies ���𳾱���Dz����.

Accidents are decreasing: Given the daily news, one might think the overall national death rate is soaring. However, it appears any increases in deaths from COVID-19 are being more than offset by reductions in fatalities from car and workplace accidents, for instance. For weeks 9 through 11 for the four prior years (2016 – 2019), the nation averaged 170,555 deaths. For weeks 9 through 11 this year, the total was 153,015—meaning 17,540 fewer people died in America during the first three weeks of March 2020 than could be reasonably expected. The final will take some time to come out, but the current trends make sense. Fewer people are driving and physically at work, thereby reducing situations where injuries can occur. Some automobile insurance carriers have to their policyholders because risks and injuries are so far down. California and other states are starting to . Moreover, driving injuries may be reduced permanently as more people and companies adapt to work from home arrangements effectively.

Medical treatment is declining: People cannot or will not get live medical treatment due to social distancing or fear. Elective surgeries are being put on hold nationwide. This can be seen in the financials of hospitals. With the COVID-19 outbreak, one may assume that hospital systems would be overwhelmed but making money. Instead, they are , laying off workers, and experiencing . There are even articles such as “?” I spoke to a neighbor who sells surgical implants and is often in operating rooms with doctors. His company is currently conducting rolling furloughs. He said all the hospitals are bleeding money.

Layoffs Usually Drive More Workers’ Compensation Claims: People who fear being laid off or fired sometimes file false (or minor) workers’ compensation claims. This could lead toward a short-term spike in new claims.

COVID-19 Covered: For positions that are required to treat patients, including hospital staff and first responders, it is likely COVID-19 will be covered under workers’ compensation policies.

Supply Chain Returning to the US: Due to the difficulties many companies have had (and will continue to have) with various supplies chains, I expect many companies will be hesitant to keep all production and suppliers off-shore in the future, especially if China is involved. While it does not change much in the short-term, we could see a long-term increase in US manufacturing and on-shore workers’ compensation services.

Shift to In-Home Medical Services: Medical care at home will become more accepted and needed.�� 911�Թ� has increased our level of telemedicine and telephonic case management (TCM) to ensure patients continue receiving care during these times. We have also increased in-home services like mail order prescription fulfillment and mail order medical supplies,durable medical equipment (DME), and home health modifications to get patients the care they need outside of hospital settings.

Like every industry, the workers’ compensation and auto markets will retract dramatically in size for as long as our nation is shut down and for some time afterwards. Finding safe and healthy ways to return to normal life is the challenge before us.

Stay safe, stay strong.

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International Classification of Diseases (ICD) was created by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has served the healthcare community for over a century. While most industrialized countries moved to the ICD’s “tenth revision” – ICD-10 – ago (1983), the United States only transitioned in October 2015.

There are differences, however, between what WHO publishes and what the US actually utilizes.

WHO’s ICD-10 classification system is for diagnosis codes only, and does not contain any procedural codes.

ICD-10-CM (Clinical Modification) is a US clinical modification of WHO’s ICD-10, developed to support US health information needs. ICD-10-CM is designed for classifying and reporting diseases in all US healthcare settings. WHO gave the US permission for these modifications.�� I have not been able to find out or what specifically was modified, but the technology systems of US healthcare organizations that operate internationally – either now or in the future – will need to accommodate for both the US ICD-10-CM codes and the WHO’s standard ICD-10 codes.

ICD-10-PCS (Procedure Classification System) was developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and is not based on WHO’s coding system. ICD-10-PCS replaced the ICD-9-PCS and are only required for facilities reporting procedures on hospital inpatient services.

When speaking of these new classifications in the US, the term “ICD-10” is often used for both code sets (ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS), but it is important to understand that they serve very different purposes.

…On the forefront, WHO has already released a BETA version of ICD-11.

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If you or a family member has ever had a serious injury or surgery, you may have��your own��real life example that proves how easily prescription meds are given and how addictive they are.��Unfortunately, my own grandmother is a real life example.��In the past couple of years, she’s broken her pelvis and��multiple back vertebrae —��all excruciating breaks.��With each break, the hospital over prescribed��OxyContin to the point that��she was addicted and (literally) seeing bugs on the walls. Twice she had to go through the withdrawal process.����After my grandmother’s first prescription med encounter,��she��and��my family told��the��doctors��what had happened the next time she landed in the hospital. We stated that she did not want��powerful, prescription meds this time, but, we discovered,��they gave them to her anyway.

The vast majority of these prescriptions are unnecessary.�� They’re hurting the health of the patient and driving healthcare costs. The solution to this problem in America? Ultimately, doctors��must write fewer scripts and patients must feel empowered enough to��question the need for these dangerous and highly addictive meds.����Quality medical care management and utilization review programs can also help curb these incidents of excess with third party nurses and physicians reviewing patient treatment plans.

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The ICD-10, a new federally-mandated version of the coding system, will add tens of thousands of codes to describe what bone was broken and where the injury happened (from bathroom to chicken coop). Recently the Wall Street Journal wrote an amusing article on the upcoming ICD-10 implementation and what it means to our industry.

Background:
As you may already know, the ICD is the international standard code set for diagnostic classification. The code set is used to classify diseases and other health problems recorded on medical bills, health records and death certificates. The codes help enable the storage and retrieval of diagnostic information for clinical, analytical and quality purposes. They also provide World Health Organization (WHO) Member States’ with the basis for national mortality and morbidity statistics. ICD-10 stands for International Classification of Disease, Tenth Edition. It’s a coding system WHO created in 1989 to replace ICD-9. Nearly every country has adopted this standard, although some countries have created their own modifications. The US already partially uses ICD-10, but only for mortality reporting done for the CDC (cause of death). For now, US diagnoses continue to be reported with ICD-9-CM.

The big switch in the US happens October 1, 2013. On that date the ICD-10 will replace the ICD-9 and the Center for Medicare Services (CMS) will adopt ICD-10 CM (clinical modification) in place of ICD-9 CM and ICD-10-PCS (procedural coding system). Implementation of the PCS system is scheduled to coincide with implementation of the new diagnostic coding system.

• Data exchanges and data storage must be able to handle the longer codes. Anyone on a relational database will have no issue with storage length of the code — from five to seven characters.
• Anyone using XML standards for data exchange will have no issues either.�� Those using fixed width flat file exchanges have to modify their code.��

• New codes must be loaded into reference tables.��

• Validation rules need to be updated for the new format.

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Here’s an about Predictive Modeling that focuses on the workers’ compensation insurance industry. The concepts apply to many industries and I tried to lay the concepts out in simple terms so it may be a good read for anyone interested in learning more on the topic.

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