It’s been another year of fighting the good fight here at daisyNews.

With 2024 in the rearview mirror, let’s look back at the most popular articles that informed, explained, and occasionally outraged.

Speaking of “outraged,” readers may notice that many of the ten articles below feature Third-Party Administrator (TPA) Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc. This TPA is one of the largest claims administrators in the nation; 19% of the over 3 million bills daisyBill providers sent in 2024 were for Sedgwick.

Sedgwick’s often troubling behavior has an outsized impact on providers and injured workers nationwide—leading to outsized interest in Sedgwick from our readership. Employers and insurers using Sedgwick’s TPA services should consider the facts and data regarding Sedgwick’s problematic business practices presented in these articles.

Our deepest thanks go to our readers from every corner of the workers’ compensation world: providers and billers, employers, attorneys, claims administrators, and others who have a stake in reforming the system to serve injured workers better.

We’re incredibly grateful to readers who commented on the articles and sent us emails, including those of you who weren’t exactly full of praise. Improving workers’ comp means facing hard and sometimes ugly truths and navigating a broad spectrum of opinion.

Either way, we’re all in it together—and together, we’re stronger.

Top 10 Articles: daisyNews 2024

1. Sedgwick Boasts 54% Denial Rate for Injured Worker Treatment In an appalling example of the systemic problems with California’s Utilization Review and treatment authorization, Sedgwick bragged on its marketing website that the TPA denies over half the care injured workers’ treating doctors recommend, producing a healthy “return on investment” for Sedgwick’s clients.

2. daisyNews Reader Exposes Vast Conspiracy Easily the article that generated the most public comments, this exposé blew the lid off of daisyBill’s covert plan to bring about the downfall of the entire insurance industry. Truthers and flat-Earthers of the workers’ comp space, this one’s for you.

3. Sedgwick Stiffs Doctors With Outdated Fee Schedule Rates In keeping with its annual tradition, Sedgwick took its sweet time updating its systems to reflect 2024 CA fee schedule increases and failed to pay increased reimbursement amounts (with 2025 fee increases days away, we stand ready to collect and report on Sedgwick’s payment behavior again).  

4. Sedgwick: 49% of Appeals Incorrectly Denied In keeping with its long-standing habit of non-compliance, Sedgwick improperly denied tens of thousands of CA providers’ Second Review appeals disputing payment denials and reductions—by erroneously claiming the appeals were “duplicates” of the original bills (all while the state regulatory agency refused to enforce its appeal regulations).

5. CA: 2024 Physician Fee Schedule 2.75% Increase Explained Calculating reimbursements for treating injured workers isn’t easy, so we built software to calculate the fees owed automatically. This article discussed how California’s 2024 Conversion Factor update increased reimbursements for physician services.

6. CA DWC & Maximus Rig IBR to Hand Sedgwick the Win Proving that claims administrators can only be as awful as state regulators allow, the CA Division of Workers’ Compensation (CA DWC) intervened in a payment dispute to ensure Sedgwick could deprive a doctor of appropriate reimbursement for authorized treatment.

7. Injured Workers Are Gold Mines for Insurers The National Council on Compensation Insurance reports that workers’ comp delivered more profit for insurers than any other line of business for the tenth year in a row. Could that have anything to do with undertreated workers, underpaid doctors, and lax compliance enforcement?

8. 5 Workers’ Comp Billing Tips for Texas Medical Billers (2024) From intake to documentation and beyond, these are the most important things to remember (plus a bonus tip) when billing for treating injured workers in the Lone Star State (seriously y’all, stop sending your bills to the TX DWC!).

9. Workers’ Comp Exec: WCIRB “Skews Statistics” California legislators, regulators, and other stakeholders depend on the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau to analyze data and clearly show how the system functions. The only problem? They’re an insurer advocacy group whose research doesn’t pass the sniff test.

10. CA DWC to Impose Costly New Reporting Burdens on Providers In its infinite wisdom, the CA DWC plans to overhaul documentation requirements for providers treating injured workers—at a potentially substantial cost to practices in administrative resources. Never change, CA DWC.

Workers’ comp billing is different. Talk to daisyBill about making it easier and less costly to treat injured workers.

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