Delaware WC Panel Begins Work

A Delaware panel established to oversee efforts to keep the state’s workers’ comp rates affordable is getting down to work.

Delaware’s Workers Compensation Oversight Panel is charged with creating a new medical fee schedule that would result in a 33 percent reduction in medical costs for workers’ comp cases over three years.

Gov. Jack Markell on Aug. 25 attended the opening meeting of the oversight panel, which was established by legislation passed this year to address recent steep increases in workers’ comp costs for businesses. The legislation was based on recommendations of a task force established last year to address double-digit hikes in average workers’ comp rates over the past two years after five years of steady declines.