Incidence of musculoskeletal diagnoses for workers’ compensation cases presenting to hospitals in Illinois (USA), 2017-2024

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study was to characterize the incidence of musculoskeletal conditions presenting to Illinois hospitals that are billed to workers' compensation. METHODS: Musculoskeletal conditions were defined as those with M codes in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10-CM) with and without concurrent acute injuries (S & T codes). RESULTS: From 2017-2024, there were 319,775 hospital presentations for work-related musculoskeletal diagnoses, of which 229,295 (69.5%) did not have a concurrent acute traumatic injury. Of those without a concurrent acute injury, 29.8% (n=66,210) had a musculoskeletal pain diagnosis without a specific non-pain musculoskeletal diagnosis, 8.5% (N=18,799) had a diagnosis of non-specific lower back pain, and 61.8% (N=137,286) had a specific musculoskeletal diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital data provide important information on work-related clinically significant conditions that may not be captured through other surveillance systems.