California sees 16% Increase in comp medical evaluators: Report
- July 11, 2025
- Posted by: Web workers
- Category: Workers Comp
The California Workers’ Compensation Institute reported that the number of qualified medical evaluators in the state increased by 16% from 2019 to 2024.
CWCI said in a bulletin released Wednesday that the majority of the growth occurred after the Division of Workers’ Compensation adopted a new fee schedule for medical-legal documents that took effect in 2021.
There were 2,474 certified QMEs in 2020, and the total gradually climbed to 2,972 in 2024.
CWCI also reported that the number of QMEs increased in 90% of the reviewed specialties over the study period. QMEs specializing in pain medicine and anesthesiology increased by 65%, physical medicine and rehabilitation QMEs by 40%, spine specialists by 38%, orthopedic surgeons by 37% and internal medicine specialists by 28%.
The only exception was psychology, where the number of QMEs fell 8% to 403 in 2024 from 440 in 2019.
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