The Division of Workers' Compensation released a set of proposals Wednesday to penalize companies that drag their feet when they review medical treatments that doctors order for injured workers. In what has been a contentious process, this will be the third time the division has tried to implement fines to punish employers or insurers who break the rules of the new cost-control system known as utilization review. These reviews went into effect at the end of 2004 as one of many legislative changes that have cut workers' comp costs by about 60 percent in roughly two years.
See "Workers' comp penalty proposal", Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle, February 7, 2007