The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just released its latest version of the WCMSA Reference Guide (Version 3.2, October 5, 2020). This new guide replaces the WCMSA Reference guide version 3.1 (May 11, 2020).

The new Reference Guide provides a list of major medical centers used by the Workers’ Compensation Review Contractor (WCRC). This list of centers is used to establish pricing associated with medical services such as a surgery, hospital stay, long-term in-patient care, etc. The list of the zip codes is found in Appendix 7 of the Guide and should follow the same process as outlined for selecting the proper jurisdiction for determining pricing.

CMS also added a new screen to the WCMSA Portal (WCMSAP) on October 5, which requires the submitter to answer the question, “Does the proposed WCMSA for this settlement include any costs associated with a major medical center, Yes or No?” If the answer is yes, then the appropriate zip code for the major medical center that was used in the calculation of the WCMSA needs to be entered into the space provided.

This enhancement should improve the WCMSA process. In the past, it has not been clear which major medical center the WCRC used to price WCMSAs.

The new process should reduce the number of counter higher determinations received on WCMSAs. The industry has been asking CMS/WCRC to clarify this issue for some time and Optum is pleased to see that this has been addressed in the WCMSA Reference Guide.