Texas Workers’ Comp Bill Moves On

The Texas Senate State Affairs Committee finished work on Senate Bill 5, which would drastically change Texas’ workers’ compensation system, and the committee substitute SB 5 now goes to the full Senate for consideration. Sen. Todd Staples of Palestine, who sponsored SB 5, said the state must reform workers’ comp because the state pays far too much for treatment for injured workers, without seeing comparable results.

SB 5 would eliminate the current six-member commission that oversees workers’ comp in favor of a single commissioner, and would change the name of the Texas Workers’ Compen-sation Commission to the Texas Department of Workers’ Comp-ensation. According to Staples, a single commissioner would be better able to respond to market changes, and would be more accountable to citizens and workers. The substitute to SB 5 would require the single commissioner to have the same qualifications as the commissioner of the Texas Department of Insurance. The legislation also creates a workers’ comp treatment network, based on the model of network health care currently used by many businesses.

A number of amendments were added in committee. One allows certain exemptions from the network system in cases involving emergency care, outside referrals or special consideration if a patient lives outside of a network area. Another preserves the rights of patients to choose who treats them within the network. Other changes to SB 5 would prevent a physician from serving as a “designated doctor” under certain conditions. A designated doctor is one who advises TDWC on workers’ compensation issues. If a doctor works for one of the treatment networks established by SB 5, then he or she is ineligible to serve as a TDWC designated doctor.

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