California's Return-to-Work Supplement Program provides a $5,000 payment to some workers who cannot return to work after a permanently disabling workplace injury. RAND researchers evaluated program performance and identified options for improvement.

These proceedings are the product of a May 2003 colloquium on the workers' compensation medical benefit delivery system, with a focus on the access, cost, and quality issues facing the system and mechanisms to improve its quality and efficiency.

This monograph analyzes the effects of changes to the workers' compensation system on return-to-work rates for California's injured workers. The authors study how public policies that influence return to work have changed in California in the past decade, estimate average return-to-work rates, compare the trends with the policy changes, and examine the impact that recent system reforms have had on benefit adequacy.

This brief summarizes a study of how changes to the workers' compensation system have affected return-to-work rates in California, how return-to-work trends compare with policy changes, and recent trends in benefit adequacy.