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Text Box: LEGISLATION Text Box: Facility Fee Rule Text Box: Budget and Assessment Text Box: penalty in Section 359(2) provided for in Title 39-A. The bill was approved by the Labor Committee. Both bills will now go before the full House and Senate for debate and enactment. Text Box: The Board submitted two bills for consideration during the First Regular Session of the 124th Legislature. The first bill will change the assessment process so that assessment collections which exceed 10% of the maximum assessment are used to reduce the annual assessment on Text Box: insured employers. The bill was unanimously approved by the Labor Committee. The second bill clarifies that Maine Insurance Guaranty Association (MIGA) is required to pay all penalties for non-compliance of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act, with the exception of the Text Box: The report also confirmed that the Board has accurately and effectively accounted for income and expenditures over the last decade. In May staff will recommend an assessment for the upcoming fiscal year. Text Box: A recent comprehensive independent audit report written by Blake, Hurley, McCallum & Conley gave the Board a clean bill of health in regard to its assessment and budgetary procedures and advanced recommendations to improve the process, most Text Box: of which have been implemented by the Board. The report detailed the success the Board has had in implementing a unique and complicated budget and assessment process. Text Box: The Facility Fee Rule is not viewed by the Board as a one-time event. Accordingly, Board Staff’s recommendations for future courses of action are: ▫ Medicare updates should be reviewed and if warranted implemented annually; ▫ Payment rates should be recalculated and adjusted annually; ▫ Expenditures should be analyzed annually; ▫ Ingenix should be retained for one year to review and analyze the data and make recommendations to the Board as to adjustments to the Facility Fee Rule. Text Box: The Workers’ Compensation Board has made significant progress in regard to a Facility Fee Rule to contain health care costs. In 2007, the Board contracted with Ingenix to review hospital inpatient, outpatient, and ambulatory surgical center facility charges and costs. Four meetings have been held with a consensus-based rulemaking group. Although that group was able to reach consensus on a methodology, they were unable to agree on a base rate. Board staff presented a draft rule to the Board in January 2009, Text Box: which has been sent to public hearing. The objectives of the draft Facility Fee Rule include: providing access to quality care for injured workers, ensuring that providers are paid fairly, reducing and containing healthcare costs, and, creating clarity in rules and simplicity for maintenance. A presentation made to the Board at the time the draft rule was presented indicated that had the rule been implemented last year, payments for inpatient services would have been reduced by 16.5% to 22.6%. Text Box: Page # Text Box: “An independent accountant report ... gave the Board a clean bill of health in regard to its assessment and budgetary procedures”

“providing access to quality care for injured workers, ensuring that providers are paid fairly, reducing and containing healthcare costs…”