CMS Releases New WCMSA Reference Guide (Version 4.4) – Updates CDC Life Table for WCMSAs

July 28, 2025 / 1 min read

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As many will recall, in early June the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released an alert announcing that beginning June 14, 2025, it will use the “Table 1: Life Table for the total population: United States, 2022” to calculate an adjusted life expectancy in Workers’ Compensation Medicare Set-Asides (WCMSAs).^[1] This table correlates a person’s age with anticipated life expectancy, so CMS uses it to determine the appropriate length of medical treatment.

In follow-up to its June announcement, CMS has released a new WCMSA Reference Guide (Version 4.4, July 14, 2025) noting that it has now updated the CDC Life Table link with the new CDC Life Table as part of Section 10.3 of the WCMSA Reference Guide. Specifically, CMS states in Section 1.1 (“Changes in this Version of the Guide”) that “[t]he CDC Life Table Link was updated (Section 10.3).”^[2] Of note, Section 1.1 references no other changes made as part of the WCMSA Reference Guide (Version 4.4) release.^[3] For the reader’s convenience, click here to review the updated CDC Life Table.

Please do not hesitate to contact the author if you have any questions about this update or its potential impact regarding WCMSAs.

[1] See CMS’s webpage: What's New | CMS

[2] WCMSA Reference Guide (Version 4.4, July 14, 2025), Section 1.1.

[3] Id.