Contingent workers: Workers' compensation data analysis strategies and limitations.

The growth of the contingent workforce presents many challenges in the occupational safety and health arena. State and federal laws impose obligations and rights on employees and employers, but contingent work raises issues regarding responsibilities to maintain a safe workplace and difficulties in collecting and reporting data on injuries and illnesses. Contingent work may involve uncertainty about the length of employment, control over the labor process, degree of regulatory, or statutory protections, and access to benefits under workers' compensation.

Safe lifting programs at long-term care facilities and their impact on workers' compensation costs.

Objective: To determine the utility of a safe lifting program index and a measure of lift inventory to predict workers' compensation claim frequency and costs in long-term care facilities in 23 states.

Methods: Workers' compensation claims and cost data were matched to Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)-certified facilities (N = 656). Facility safe lifting program index were derived from interviews with directors of nursing in a subset (N = 271).

Trends in components of medical spending within workers compensation: results from 37 states combined.

Objective: This study provides estimates of the factors that are contributing to the escalation of medical costs.

Design: Measures of price and utilization trends were developed to estimate their contributions to increases in workers compensation medical severity overall and across a range of services and diagnoses.

Patients: Analysis utilized medical transactions data covering approximately 327,000 closed claims for injuries occurring in 37 states in 1996, 1997, 2001, and 2002 provided to the National Council on Compensation Insurance by several large workers' compensation insurance companies.