Eleven Responsibilities for a Successful Medical Department and Medical Director in Workers Comp

July 1, 2009 By // by Robert Elliott, J.D. Leave a Comment

Your medical director, medical department or consultant is a key resource to help interpret medical jargon accompanying work-related injuries or illnesses. Medical personnel can help you to determine the extent of work-related injuries and design transitional duty jobs to get injured employees back to work.

Here is a list of duties for your medical director:

Identify the appropriate contact person to discuss worker injuries and workers’ compensation at your facility. Usually the appropriate person will be the workers’ compensation manager (injury coordinator) or middle manager.
Visit company facilities serviced at least once per year.
Observe and document the physical requirements for all jobs to determine which of them have the potential to become transitional duty positions.
Assess the company’s transitional duty program positions.
Telephone treating medical providers BEFORE they prescribe time out of work for an injured employee, to discuss the possibility of transitional duty assignments.
Review injured employee’s file to ensure the necessary documentation is completed. If not, talk to the injury coordinator, who should obtain the documentation.
Work closely with your injury coordinator to resolve those work-related incidents requiring medical attention or lost time.
Observe and note the physical requirements of jobs and transitional duty jobs to provide informed recommendations for transitional duty. This also increases employees’ comfort level with the company’s medical director.
Coordinate with injury coordinator and employees’ treating physician to develop transitional duty job descriptions accommodating physical limitations of injured employees.
Define and document the boundaries of your role as in-house medical director to ensure delineation between medical director activities and adjuster activities. (workersxzcompxzkit).
Determine what medical privacy regulations are relevant to avoid potential violations.