About the report
In 2005, the 79th Texas Legislature passed House Bill 7, which authorized the use of workers' compensation health care networks certified by TDI. This legislation also directed REG to publish an annual informational report card comparing the performance of certified networks with each other, as well as with non-network claims, on a variety of measures including:
- Overall health care costs.
- Utilization of health care.
- Employee satisfaction with care.
- Employee access to care.
- Return-to-work outcomes.
- Health-related outcomes.
In 2021, House Bill 1753 changed the annual publication to a biennial publication.
Published September 2024 by the Workers' Compensation Research & Evaluation Group.
Summary
The results in this report card show a comparison between 10 networks with a total of 205,716 injured employees and non-network claims with a total 197,365 injured employees. All injuries occurred between June 1, 2021, and May 31, 2023.
Overall, the 2024 network report card continues to show that networks tend to be more cost-efficient than non-network claims, and these cost differences appear to be partially driven by lower hospital utilization and lower prices per service. Despite lower costs, network claims generally have higher level of satisfaction with health care, better return-to-work and functional outcomes, compared with non-network claims. Network claims also tend to receive initial non-emergency medical care sooner than non-network claims, which studies have shown may assist in controlling health care costs and reducing unnecessary disability among injured employees.
Key findings 
Health care costs. Networks generally have lower overall health care costs per claim than non-network claims at six months and 12 months maturity. However, several networks did have higher overall health care costs than non-networks. Network claims have lower average professional and pharmacy costs but higher hospital costs than non-network claims.
Utilization of health care. A higher percentage of network claims received professional services and pharmacy services than non-network claims. A higher percentage of non-network claims received hospital services.
Employee satisfaction with care. The level of satisfaction with health care was higher for network than non-network claims with many injured employees reporting higher levels of satisfaction with their treating doctor and higher levels of agreement with their doctors.
About two out of three injured employees with network claims reported that their work-related health care was the same or better than the medical care they normally receive when injured or sick.
Employee access to care. Overall, networks provided non-emergency care sooner after an injury than non-network claims. All networks had a higher percentage of injured employees who reported that they had no problems getting needed medical care and getting medical care quickly after their injury than non-network claims.
Return-to-work outcomes. Network claims had higher return-to-work rates than non-network claims.
Health-related outcomes. Most network claims had higher physical and mental functioning scores than non-network claims.