MedRisk’s CERTExpert Guidelines Get Approval for AHRQ National Guideline Clearinghouse

MedRisk Inc., a provider of specialty managed care services to the workers’ compensation industry, announced that its physical therapy treatment guidelines have been approved for inclusion in the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC), sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The guidelines power MedRisk’s CERTExpert utilization management product.

This national recognition confirms – through the NGC objective inclusion process – that the guideline recommendations are appropriate for use in California, Texas and other states that set medical guideline standards for workers’ comp utilization management. The approval also places detailed physical therapy guidelines into the workers’ comp industry for the first time.

CERTExpert Treatment Guidelines specifically address physical therapy services for workers’ comp cases. These unique guidelines not only deal with the length of a treatment episode, but also the choice and sequence of interventions for specific diagnostic groups based on the severity and complexity of the injury. They divide important work injury conditions into treatment patterns based on five diagnostic groups: Low Back, Cervical/Thoracic, Upper Extremity, Lower Extremity, and Hand and Wrist.

The CERTExpert guidelines were developed by Expert Clinical Benchmarks, LLC (ECB) and reviewed by an international, scientific panel of experts in physical medicine. ECB is the research and academic subsidiary of MedRisk.

These guidelines are expert-based, literature-supported and outcomes-validated using data from more than 120,000 workers’ comp physical therapy claims. They use terminology and classifications that have been approved by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA). The result is specific clinical guidance for the physical therapist treating an individual patient.

For more information on the product, visit www.medrisknet.com.