More than 15,400 independent medical reviews a month are issued in California’s worker’s compensation system, according to a new report from the Department of Industrial Relations.

The DIR this week issued a progress report on the its independent medical review program. IMR is the medical dispute resolution process for the state’s workers’ comp system that uses medical expertise to obtain consistent, evidence-based decisions.

The report describes IMR program activity in 2018, the sixth year since the program was implemented. The organization administering the program, Maximus Federal Services Inc., reportedly received more than 250,000 IMR applications, and issued almost 185,000 final determination letters, each containing one or more medical necessity dispute.

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