(P-226) Long- and Short-term Disability and Workers' Compensation Trends for Employees with Gastrointestinal (Digestive System) Conditions in the United States

Background: Absences due to leaves can have significant impact on business performance; employers are intensifying benefit management and increasingly making the connection between worker health and absence risk.

Objectives: Use objective data to compare patients’ all-cause short-term disability (STD), long-term disability (LTD) and workers' compensation (WC) utilization and explore changes from baseline for employees with gastrointestinal conditions.

Methods: Employees with gastrointestinal medical-claims based on the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) digestive system category were retrospectively identified annually in Workpartners Research Reference Database during 2001—2019. Each year the analysis focused on the percent of patients with gastrointestinal conditions, and by absence benefit, the percent of eligible employees (EMPs) utilizing the benefit, mean leave length (in days) and median payments as percent of salary (MedianPay). Disability and Workers' Compensation payments included lump-sum distributions and potentially extended beyond the year initially incurred. Workplace accidents were paid under the WC benefit. Workers' Compensation claims without absence from work(medical-only) were excluded. Sick leave claims may be taken for any reason and were excluded. All employees’ absences were aggregated based on the initiation-year. For each benefit, average leave-length and MedianPay payments were calculated and compared with baseline (2001).

Results: At baseline, 8.4% of EMPs had Gastrointestinal conditions; of these, 12.4% of EMPs filed STD claims lasting 37.53 days at 70.5% MedianPay, 0.5% of EMPs filed LTD claims lasting 194.27 days at 19.6% MedianPay, and 1.5% of EMPs filed WC-claims lasting 53.99 days at 67.2% MedianPay. From 2002-2019, 7.1-10.2% of EMPs had gastrointestinal conditions. Of these, 10.4-16.5% of EMPs filed STD claims lasting 80.8-119.8% of baseline-days (BDs) and paying 68.6-127.7 of MedianPay; 0.6%—1.4% of EMPs filed LTD claims lasting 61.2%—368.0% of BDs at 115.1%—305.7% of MedianPay; 0.5%—1.5% of EMPs filed WC claims lasting 128.1%—327.6% of BDs at 78.3%—175.6% of MedianPay. MedianPay was highest in 2013 (STD), 2002 (LTD), and 2003 (WC). Claims-lengths were longest in 2019 (STD), and 2006 (LTD) and 2010 (WC).

Conclusions: Employees with gastrointestinal diseases used different absence benefits over time with varying leave lengths and payments as a percent of salary. Using a constant cost over time for all benefits is not accurate or appropriate.