January 1, 2025
Over the past eight years, there has been a steady decrease in workers’ compensation rates and 2025 will be no different. However, the level that rates will be decreased is far lower than in previous years, in part because of changes in how workers’ compensation physicians will be paid.
In November of 2024, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation announced a 1 percent decrease in workers’ compensation rates as a result of recommendations from the National Council of Compensation Insurance (NCCI). The rate decrease applies to both new and renewal workers’ compensation insurance policies effective in Florida as of Jan. 1, 2025.
“This is the smallest decrease that we’ve seen in years,” said Kyla Murphy, AVP National Healthcare Practice, Risk Strategies. “There was a 15.1 percent decrease in 2024 and an 8.4 percent decrease in 2023; there’s a pretty big difference from 15 to 8 to 1 percent.”
Part of the reason for this minimal decrease is the passing of Florida Senate Bill 362, which determines how worker-treating physicians are reimbursed. The bill increases reimbursement for physicians treating injured workers to 175 percent of Medicare rates from the current rate of 110 percent and increases reimbursement for surgical procedures to 210 percent of Medicare rates from the current rate of 140 percent. These rates will take effect Jan. 1, 2025.
According to the NCCI, the 1 percent decrease in workers’ compensation rates should offset the anticipated impact resulting from the senate bill, which is expected to result in a 5.6 percent increase on overall workers’ compensation system costs. Excluding the impact of this bill from the filing would result in a revised overall rate decrease of 6.4 percent as opposed to the filed 1 percent change.
“This new bill, which aids doctors, is long overdue,” said Tom Murphy, SVP National Healthcare Practice, Risk Strategies, noting that increasing complaints from injured employees and their employers about proper care and lack of access to care helped to propel the bill into law. “In our world, we know when doctors stop treating workers’ compensation patients and there was definitely a lot of frustration out there—especially in the orthopedic community—from doctors who did not feel that they were getting paid enough.”
As a result of doctors’ dissatisfaction, patients were having to deal with not only a shortage of physicians in general, but a limited number of physicians who would take workers’ compensation cases.
“The rate decrease as a result of the bill shows how much the legislature can have an effect on these things, which is why we encourage our physician partners to get involved when it comes to issues that can affect their practices,” said Kyla Murphy.
According to Tom Murphy, workers’ compensation rates have dropped more than 75 percent since 2003, despite the fact that the vast majority of other lines of insurance have increased dramatically over that time, including property and casualty insurance.
“This is one of those things that we’re happy to take to our medical groups and doctors—at least there’s good news when it comes to workers’ compensation,” he said. “However, I do believe that these rates will begin to tick up in the not too distant future since they’ve been going down for so many years.”
Murphy noted that when he first started working as a workers’ compensation agent 20 years ago, the rate for medical practices was $1.05 for every $100 of payroll; it is now 24 cents.
With the increase in workers’ compensation payments, Murphy expects to see more doctors taking these types of cases, including those who had dropped out as a result of lower payments.
“It’s a nice jump from 110 percent of Medicare rates up to 175 percent, and that’s just for primary care physicians; surgeons are making even more,” he said. “With these increases in payment/reimbursement, it’s definitely going to bring in more doctors to treat injured workers.”
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