Younger Workers Use ER More Often, Says NCCI

Among injured workers, on a per claim basis, younger employees' use of the emergency room for treatment is 17 percent higher than older workers, a new study has found.

The findings in a research brief by the National Council on Compensation Insurance suggested the reason for the discrepancy is that younger workers lack health insurance and have no regular doctor to go to for treatment.

Boca Raton, Fla.-based NCCI noted 2005 Census Bureau data showing 31 percent in the 18-to-24 age group and 26 percent in the 25-to-34 bracket were uninsured, while only 15 percent of persons ages 45-to-64 were uninsured.

Also cited were Robert Wood Johnson Foundation findings that uninsured adults are almost four times as likely as insured adults to lack a personal doctor or health care provider.

The brief by NCCI researcher Martin H. Wolf suggested that "younger workers may view the emergency room as their only choice in seeking medical treatment, and they will use ER services even in cases where a medical issue is not necessarily an 'emergency.'"

Of total workers' comp claims for younger workers age 20-to-34 some 41.5 percent are for emergency room treatment, the brief said, compared with 35.6 percent for older workers.

NCCI said "Emergency Room," the largest of the bundled medical charge categories in terms of both the number of ER services and payments, shows an average payment per service of roughly $150 (average of $143 and $156), with older workers paying 9 percent more per service than younger workers.

The report said bundled categories present enormous analytical difficulties, "both because available data do not provide any means of disaggregating the charges by specific procedures and because the descriptor names are ambiguous as to specific charges." Old and young differences cannot be untangled from bundled data, the brief said.

NCCI is a provider of workers' compensation insurance and employee injury data and statistics. Insurance departments have designated NCCI as the licensed rating and statistical organization for 34 states. Data for the study was obtained from those areas where NCCI operates.