Data seen as vital to curbing costs.

An analysis of an integrated medical and disability database by the Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) finds "significant relationships" between medical episodes and disability costs. That's a good indication, the IBI says, that such databases can be a powerful tool for employers to better manage employee health, medical treatment and disability.

Moreover, the institute notes, this type of analysis is unusual outside workers' compensation, in that benefits for non-work-related disability and medical care traditionally are managed in separate databases, both by employers and their benefits suppliers.

San Francisco-based IBI analyzed 15,000 disability claims and 53,000 medical conditions from 183 employers over an 18-month period. The integrated, confidential data, which was not specific to employer or individual, was supplied by CIGNA, an IBI board member.

The analysis revealed the following:

* Though medical expense consumes 80 cents of every claims dollar and disability payments consume 20 cents, analysis shows that the number of medical conditions associated with a disability is a key driver of this difference. On average, there are 3.4 medical episodes related to each disability case. Usually, these episodes represent treatment for different medical conditions.

While average costs per medical episode are lower with multiple episodes, total costs per case are higher with each additional episode. Cases with multiple medical episodes cost, on average, 24 percent more than cases with just one medical episode.

* Just 10 percent of disability cases account for more than half the total medical and disability costs. IBI suggests that a good business strategy is to focus on employees at risk of having more than one medical condition and to stress prevention rather than treatment after the fact.

* Lost productivity associated with disability absence averages $22,800 per disability claim, compared with $13,600 for medical costs and $3,800 for disability payments. Musculoskeletal disability cases are the biggest lost productivity driver.