Medical costs in workers' compensation insurance

Abstract

We examine whether patients covered by workers' compensation insurance, which covers the cost of medical care for injured workers without cost sharing and with relatively little oversight, are charged more for treatment or receive more services than patients covered by traditional insurance. Our findings indicate that workers compensation recipients are charged more for treatment. This difference persists in individual services--workers' compensation recipients are charged more per X-ray and per examination than our patients. We consider different explanations and argue that price discrimination probably plays a role.