The NCCI Medical Inflation Insights report provides a quarterly overview of the latest insights and analysis into what is driving changes in claim costs, and how these changes may or may not impact workers compensation. NCCI released its latest quarterly edition on October 30, 2025.
The Workers Compensation Weighted Medical Price Index (WCWMI) is a composition of medical cost components from the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, reweighted using our Medical Call data to better match the mix of spend in workers compensation.
In the third quarter of 2025, the average medical cost for a lost-time workers-compensation claim climbed 3.8 % compared with the same quarter a year earlier – noticeably above the 2.4 % rise in the Consumer Price Index for Medical Care yet only half the 7–8 % jumps seen in group-health plans.
Physician services, which make up four out of every ten medical dollars, rose 4.2 %, pushed higher by more office visits and pricier evaluation-and-management codes. Hospital outpatient payments jumped 5.1 % as facilities layered on extra facility fees and shifted routine injections into hospital-owned clinics. Inpatient hospital costs stayed nearly flat, gaining just 0.8 %, thanks to fixed per-diem schedules in many states. Prescription-drug spend held steady at 0.0 % change, the eighth straight quarter of no inflation, as generics now fill 93 % of scripts and opioid volume has fallen 45 % in five years.
Zoom out and the picture softens: the one-year rolling average sits at +3.5 %, the three-year average at +2.9 %, and the five-year average at +2.4 % – all comfortably below the 4–6 % medical inflation that carriers baked into 2025 rate filings.
However, based on historical trends and the broader economic backdrop, NCCI believe this softening is more likely to be temporary than a new emerging trend. Should hospital services price growth rise back into the 4% to 5% range next year and other categories remain constant, overall price growth would be closer to 3% rather than the current 2.5%
Looking ahead, early 2026 claim data show physician and outpatient prices still accelerating, but a wave of new generic launches and tighter hospital networks should keep the full-year increase under 4 %. For the first time in three years, workers-comp medical trend is once again tracking below both Medicare and group-health benchmarks, giving underwriting teams breathing room on loss costs and reserves.