Tower believes strongly that the true business value of a Medicare Set Aside (MSA) is in its ability to facilitate the settlement of a workers’ compensation claim.  Dan Anders shared insight on this topic in this week’s WorkCompWire’s Leaders Speak column, Getting Real Value out of Your MSA.

Some WC payers see an MSA as a necessary evil when it comes to trying to settle a claim with an injured worker who is at or near Medicare age.  They have an MSA company tally the future medical and pharmacy costs and either accept the allocated cost as is or freeze in sticker shock and put off any thought of settlement.  They might even settle part of the claim and choose to keep medicals open and remain at the mercy of medical inflation.

But there’s another, better option: use the MSA as a settlement tool.  Dan’s article lays out the facts and shows you how to use an “optimized MSA” and settlement partners to settle a workers’ comp claim.

What is an Optimized Medicare Set Aside?

The word optimize means “to make as effective, perfect, or useful as possible.” For Tower, a useful MSA helps settle a claim. An effective MSA achieves the perfect balance of care, compliance and cost.

Tower reviews the claimant’s medical records carefully for cost drivers – things like brand name drugs when generics are available or discontinued medications and inappropriate or open-ended treatment.  Once these are identified, we recommend clinical interventions. With our clients’ approval, we implement these interventions.  Our Physician Follow-up service, offered at no charge when preparing an MSA, clarifies medical treatment and drug regimens with the treating physician(s), escalates the case to Physician Peer Review when needed, and obtains physician statements that document current, appropriate treatment in language CMS can use to approve the MSA.

We make MSAs as useful as possible, and we know how to build a great team of settlement partners.  Don’t settle for less.

If you have questions about settling with a CMS-approved MSA – or without one – or want to talk about any Medicare Secondary Payer compliance issue, contact Dan Anders at Daniel.anders@towermsa.com

Related Prior Posts:

Build a Better Tower: Partnerships Speed Settlements of Workers’ Comp Claims with Medicare Set Aside

Need a Second Opinion on an MSA?