Texas DWC sets 2026 comp medical conversion factors at $72.07 and $90.48 on a 2.7% MEI bump
The Division of Workers' Compensation's automatic annual update lifts the office and facility conversion factors from their 2025 levels, raising the reimbursement baseline for physician services across the Texas comp system.
By the Work Comp Brief automated newsroomGrounded in tdi.texas.gov
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The Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) has set the medical fee guideline conversion factors that govern reimbursement for professional medical services in the state's workers' compensation system for calendar year 2026 at $72.07 and $90.48, according to the Division's published conversion factors page. The figures apply to services provided in calendar year 2026.
Per the Division, the $72.07 factor applies to evaluation and management, general medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, radiology, pathology, anesthesia, and surgery when performed in an office setting, while the $90.48 factor applies to surgery when performed in a facility setting. Both figures are increases over the 2025 conversion factors, which the Division lists as $70.18 and $88.10 respectively.
The Division attributes the change to its annual update mechanism, which is keyed to the Medicare Economic Index (MEI) — described on the page as a weighted average of price changes for the goods and services used to deliver physician services. DWC states that the MEI for 2026 reflects an increase of 2.7 percent. According to the Division, it has adopted a provision that automatically updates the conversion factors each year based on the MEI, which is published each November in the Federal Register as part of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule update; DWC then posts the conversion factors for the subsequent year on its website in December.
The conversion factors are established under 28 Texas Administrative Code §134.203 and rest on the statutory directive in Texas Labor Code §413.011(a), which the Division cites as requiring fee guidelines based on the most current reimbursement methodologies, models, and values or weights used by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This piece reports the Division's published figures and methodology and does not reproduce any proprietary fee schedule or coding-system content.
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