Access to medical care for individuals with workers' compensation claims

Experience at a publically funded occupational health clinical center in New York State suggests that patients with work-related illnesses often have great difficulty accessing diagnostic and treatment services. A study was designed to more quantitatively investigate the extent and nature of barriers to medical services for patients with Workers' Compensation claims. Medical practices from 13 selected medical specialties were identified from telephone directories. The directories covered six areas encompassing almost all of a 15-county region. All practices from each selected specialty were contacted by phone and asked a set of standardized questions regarding patient acceptance policies. A number of barriers were identified by the survey including practices closed to new patients and practices closed specifically to patients with Workers' Compensation claims. Barriers also were found to be widespread among practices that did accept Workers' Compensation claims, primarily related to requiring a guarantee of payment prior to seeing the patient. The results were compared by medical specialty and geographic area. While the study showed some of the difficulties patients with occupational illnesses face attempting to access medical services, it most likely underestimated the extent of the problem. Attitudes and practices that impede access, but were not measurable, create additional barriers. Our study strongly suggests that policies that improve access to medical care for individuals with Workers' Compensation claims are necessary to better serve the needs of workers with occupational illnesses.