The California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) published a new report that explores the impact of medical inflation on the state’s Official Medical Fee Schedule (OMFS).

The OMFS includes various sections, including physician services and non-physician practitioner services, pharmacy, durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies (DMEPOS), home health care, and many more.

Each section of the OMFS uses distinct rules for fee schedule calculations and different inflation factors to update prices. For inpatient, outpatient facility, ambulatory surgical center, ambulance services, and DMEPOS, OMFS adopts the same inflationary factors as Medicare.

While the impacts of inflation varies between services, it was noted that the cumulative percentage increase in the OMFS inflationary factors has been lower than economy-wide inflation.