This session will feature two well-known speakers in the workers compensation medical arena discussing its most difficult problem—pain management. Improper pain treatment drives up medical and indemnity claims costs today. This fact has even reached the mainstream media, with myriad stories of physicians over-prescribing high-potency prescription drugs to workers compensation claimants.

The panel and moderator will provide an update on medical cost containment trends as well as pain management research. This will include a discussion of the implications of the research into opioid usage and its effect on claim duration, medical cost, abuse addiction and dependency, settlements and other issues. Recent studies from the California Workers Compensation Institute will be discussed.

The goal of this session is help the audience better understand a significant cost driver in an attempt to better monitor and help solve the problem of high medical severity in workers compensation.