The 2016 Workers’ Compensation Summit today released the final report on its Dallas meetings. The Summit, held in May of this year, has launched an ongoing “National Conversation” intended to identify and resolve weaknesses and problems in the workers' compensation systems across the nation. The report puts the previously released “Imperative Issues” into an order of priority, in an attempt to clarify what the overall group has selected as the most important issues facing the industry. It is a relatively simple document when compared to previous releases from the group.
There were three of the 29 items that were definitely of greater importance within the group than the other 26. While it was indeed a diverse group with a wide range of preferences and opinions, these three stood out more at the top of the priority selection than any of the other items.
I would caution readers to remember that all of these items have importance, but if we wish to tackle these in some order of priority, this would be the recommended way in which to do it. The top three priority problem areas identified for the industry were:
- Benefit adequacy
- Regulatory complexity
- Delays in treatment even if compensable
Personally I cannot argue with the results. The report, listing the 3 priority groups in the order of their selected importance, may be downloaded here, or in the attachments box to the right of this article.