Medical fees for workers’ compensation could be revised

Senators advanced a bill from general file May 17 that would change medical fee schedules for workers’ compensation.

Omaha Sen. Steve Lathrop introduced LB152, which contained provisions for the workers’ compensation medical fees schedules. A Business and Labor Committee amendment, adopted 42-0, replaced the bill’s original provisions and would reimburse a hospital 160 percent of its Medicare rate for inpatient trauma care.

Under the bill, additional compensation would be provided for the outlier trauma cases that require unusual expenses. The stop loss threshold for such cases would be 1.25 times the basic reimbursement rate. If the billed charges were greater than the stop loss threshold amount, hospitals would be reimbursed the basic reimbursement rate plus an additional 65 percent of the amount above the stop loss threshold.

Lathrop said hospitals have raised concerns about covering increasing trauma care costs. In a significant number of trauma cases, patients are spending time in intensive care units and are not required to pay any costs associated with those services, he said.

Kearney Sen. Galen Hadley supported the amendment and said cost shifting is becoming harder for hospitals to do. Forty percent of patients who received these types of services at Creighton University Medical Center were either not insured or underinsured, he said.

“We need to help hospitals as much as we can,” Hadley said.

The bill advanced from general file on a 41-0 vote.