How To Implement An Effective Workers Compensation Disability Management Program – Strategy 10 Of 10
Closely Track & Document All Temporary Duty Activities
Anyone who has been involved with the process of filing work-related disability claims, monitoring the injured employee’s progress, and eventually securing the employee’s release to temporary or full duty knows that there are many activities in the process. Also, many people are involved – both inside and outside the company. Successful companies have developed very reliable ways of closely monitoring all activities involved with the process.
It is important to document all conversations and situations with an objective eye. All conversations with the employee, physician and supervisor should be documented. Usually any documented activity will have a follow-up activity. Successful companies use a diary system to keep track of the various details and activities of a particular case. There are a number of reasons why careful documentation is a critical part of claim management activities.
First, you simply cannot rely on your memory. Not only does the Claim Coordinator handle a number of workers compensation claims. In all probability he or she has other job responsibilities. Given the fact that the Claim Coordinator will be corresponding with multiple individuals, including the Supervisor, employee, physicians, attorney’s, and insurance company representatives over the course of several months (if not longer), he or she simply cannot rely on memory. Doing so may cost the organization dearly.
Second, you need to carefully track activities of medical providers. It is extremely important to determine as quickly as possible the physical condition, work restrictions, and medical care requirements of the injured employee. Taking information over the phone will lead to serious claim management problems later, particularly in the temporary duty offer stage of the claim and in the closure stage. This gets compounded whenever there are referral physicians and medical specialist involved, and when the employee seeks his or her own medical opinion. No two claims are alike when it comes to disability management and it will be extremely important for the Claim Coordinator to keep track of all medical information provided and make careful, consistent disability management decisions.
Third, you need to carefully track employee activities throughout the disability process. More often than not the injured employee will be extremely cooperative and honestly want to come back to work. However, there will be exceptions, and those exceptions can explode worker injury costs if the organization does not document all employee activities. This will include their agreement to disclose medical information, their report of what caused the injury, offers of temporary duty positions, correspondence if the employee rejects your temporary duty offer, and all other communications.
Fourth, you need to track your insurance company involvement. Dealing with the insurance company, and remaining consistent with their expectations, is extremely important. During the course of the claim they will comment on the compensability of the injury, the accuracy of the physician’s medical evaluation, the advisability of return to work, the advisability of discontinuing disability benefits, and much more. They also will ask for more information from time to time. This information should naturally be evaluated for consistency with other information you are obtaining from the supervisor, the employee, and physicians.
Fifth, you need to document communication with attorneys. This includes both the corporate attorney, the attorney assigned by the insurance carrier, as well as communication with the employee’s attorney if they retained one.
Finally, you need to prepare for potential hearings before the state governing body overseeing worker injuries. In many disability cases there will be a hearing before the state governing body overseeing workers compensation claims. This could include final claim settlement or a dispute over the applicability of your temporary duty job offer.
For all these reasons it is strongly recommended that the claim management team develops a reliable method of documenting all claim correspondence. This should include maintaining “hard copy” of all correspondence in individual claim files, including emails, notes, mail and faxes, maintaining electronic copies of all your correspondence, including emails, notes, mail and faxes and maintaining a safe back-up all correspondence.
CompEraser comes with on-line, on-demand resources needed to CONTROL the temporary duty program, including this important step in the process. Resources also include the formalization of your safety team, injury prevention, OSHA compliance, safety training, prompt injury response, workers compensation disability management, plus more. These resources are available 24/7 and used irrespective of which workers compensation carrier you select. Its patent-pending technology also provides unique financial reports for monitoring the effectiveness of your safety and health program on an on-going basis. For more information visit our website at www.CompEraser.com.
