Workers' compensation: medical-legal expenses: fee schedule.

Existing law establishes a workers' compensation system, which provides for comprehensive medical-legal evaluations to assist in the resolution of contested claims. Under existing law, fees for medical-legal evaluations are charged at a rate not to exceed a physician's regular fee, or the fee schedule set by the administrative director of the Division of Workers' Compensation, whichever is lower. Existing law requires that the schedule set fees for procedures according to relative values and a conversion factor, allowing for modifiers, as specified. Existing law requires the medical-legal fee schedule to be revised at the same time the fee schedule for medical treatment is revised. This bill would require that the medical-legal fee schedule be reviewed every 2 years, and updated if necessary, to increase the conversion factor by the percentage increase in the most recent federal Medicare Economic Index.