The Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) published Trends in Medical Utilization as a Function of Age and Tenure, a new report that analyzes data from 17 states from 2017-2022 to explore whether the pandemic affected medical utilization differently across age groups and job tenure levels.

The report found that while there was a decrease in the utilization of medical services for all age and tenure groups during the pandemic, younger workers and workers with shorter tenure experienced faster decreases in the utilization of emergency medical department services than other workers. But regardless, younger workers still had a higher percentage of emergency department visits than other age cohorts.

A higher proportion of claims with hospital outpatient and nonhospital care were observed for older and longer-tenured workers with injuries, consistent with the general patterns of medical utilization by age.

Though there was a decrease in the utilization of all medical services in the post-pandemic period, the frequency of emergency department visits and surgeries dropped more than that of evaluation and management services and physical medicine services.

The report also notes that there was an increase in the relative frequencies of injuries from younger workers and workers with shorter tenure. The report states that it is plausible that changes in the labor market led high job turnover and an influx of new workers in certain industries, which led to an increase in younger and inexperienced workers, leading to these higher injury frequencies.