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Increasing Physical Therapy Visits as a Marker for Time Lost From Work and High Workers' Compensation Claim Costs
Edward J Bernacki1, Nina Leung, Larry Yuspeh
1Department of Population Health, Dell Medical School, the University of Texas at Austin, Austin (Dr Bernacki, Dr Leung, Dr Tsourmas); Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD (Dr Bernacki, Dr Leung, Mr Yuspeh, Dr Kalia, Dr Tao); AVP of Strategic Risk and Strategy Management, Louisiana Workers' Compensation Corporation, Louisiana (Mr Yuspeh); North America Medical Leader, The Procter and Gamble Company, Cincinnati, OH (Dr Kalia); Department of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine (Dr Lavin); and Texas Mutual Insurance Company, Austin, TX (Dr Leung, Dr Tsourmas).
Objective:
To quantify the association between physical therapy (PT) visits and workers' compensation costs and lost time.
Method:
A total of 40,203 lost-time claims (1998 to 2018) were analyzed.
Results:
The odds ratio of total paid claim costs more than or equal to $100,000 increased with the number of PT visits from 1.91 with 1 to 3 PT visits (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.62 to 2.26) to 5.56 (95% CI: 4.86 to 6.37) for workers with a surgical procedure and more than or equal to 50 PT visits versus those without PT visits, when controlling for confounding factors. The risk of remaining at an off work status is greatest among claims involving surgery, escalating among claims with 15 or more PT visits (hazard ratio more than or equal to 3.76).
Conclusions:
PT visits may be used as a marker for high workers' compensation cost and delayed return-to-work.
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