VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION STUDY

In 1995, the Commission initiated a project to determine the impact of the workers' compensation reform legislation on the workers' compensation vocational rehabilitation program.

The primary objective was to measure the impact of the reform changes on the vocational rehabilitation program. A model was developed to get baseline information that will provide comparative data in future years regarding the number of workers undergoing vocational rehabilitation, the duration and costs of rehabilitation programs and services and the results produced by those programs and services.

Questions being addressed include:

• Did the reforms reduce the costs of the VR benefit for employers?
• How have changes affected outcomes for injured workers?

The Vocational Rehabilitation project was initiated in 1995 and is ongoing. A final report is expected at the end of 1998.

An interim study report entitled "Vocational Rehabilitation Benefit: An Analysis of Costs, Characteristics, and the Impact of the 1993 Reforms" was published in August 1997.

Preliminary findings indicate that the cost of the vocational rehabilitation benefit declined by $274 million (49%) between 1993 and 1994. The decline in average cost per VR claim appears to be equally dramatic, dropping 45% from about $13,000 to just over $7,000. Return-to-work outcomes and post-injury earnings for injured workers seem to have worsened. Twenty percent of those injured workers receiving vocational rehabilitation services never return to work, while 30% of those are currently not working.