Workers' compensation costs for employers could rise steeply as a result of a decision by the American Medical Association (AMA) to classify obesity as a treatable disease,a new report contends. The report by the California Workers' Compensation Institute (CWCI), prompted by AMA's mid-June decision to approve a resolution reclassifying obesity as “a disease state,” says the AMA effectively declared that one-third of all Americans suffer from a medical condition that requires treatment.
In workers' comp, obesity has historically been classified as co-morbidity— a condition that occurs at the same time, but usually independent of, an injury or illness.
To quantify the potential impact, the CWCI research determined that paid losses on claims with the obesity co-morbidity averaged $116,437, or 81.3 percent more than those without; and that these claims averaged nearly 35 weeks of lost time, or 80 percent more than the 19-week average for claims without the obesity co-morbidity. That was based on a study of 1.2 million workers compensation claims from accident years 2005 to 2010 in California.
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