Why Do We Need a Team to Manage Workers' Comp? No one person has the expertise to get everything done and this is never truer than with workers' compensation management. Workers' comp management succeeds best when remedial strategies are addressed by a team of people who contribute ideas from their unique perspectives which, when synthesized by the group will result in unique, imaginative and balanced solutions. A team consists of two or more people connected to each other by a common bond or desire. Apart, they cannot achieve this goal, but together, if they work well together, they can. When individuals work together as a team, a group dynamic emerges — a group personality — separating the group from a random collection of strangers. In a really successful team synergy emerges — a synthesis of group energy generating creative ideas and strategies and taking the group's thinking to a whole other level. We call this a cross-functional team. What Is a Cross Functional Team? A cross-functional team consists of management, employees, consultants and vendors from various disciplines coming together to contribute to common group goals. Cross-functionality must be both horizontal and vertical, encompassing various disciplines and levels of management and employees. How Do I Choose Team Members? Once you've completed your workers' comp assessment, you will identify procedural gaps based on the recommendations the assessment produces. Those gaps will help formulate an action strategy. Your identified action goals determine who you ask to participate in your team. How Does This Apply to Workers' Comp Management? Over the years, we've noticed workers' comp management teams emerge , in general from the same core cross functionalities needed to get the job done and these include, but are not be limited to: 1-Workers' Comp Manager: who facilitates and orchestrates everything 2-Workers' Comp Coordinators; (in multi-sites) orchestrates and facilitates for their jurisdiction 3-Department Heads, Supervisors: — brings workers' comp management to employee level. (This is a horizontal part of your cross functionality.) 4-Senior Management: backs the program with their commitment to give it credibility and authority. (This is a vertical thrust of cross functionality.) 5-Union Officials and Members: If your organization is unionized then workers' comp management must dovetail with union return-to-work, transitional duty policies. 6-Medical Department: If you have an internal department, or you are in a state where you can choose your medical personnel. 7-Physician Advisor: Regardless of whether you have internal medical support, a physician reviewer with a background in work-related injuries — and ideally workers' comp management — is necessary to weigh in on file reviews to build return-to-work strategies. 8-Insurer: Whether it be claims adjuster, third-party-administrator , or members of self-insured department are critical because in the future they will be working claims with an eye toward how this impacts workers'' comp management strategies. 9-Legal: Ensures workers' comp management initiatives are within the law for the states they are designed to serve. Other Teammates Since cross-functional teams consist of living breathing people, it stands to reason the team is a living entity as well, thus team members can be added or released on an as-needed basis. Vendors can be invited to participate as consultants during the life span of the projects they are hired to complete. These would include specialists from fields such as rehabilitation, utilization/hospital review, medical review, nurse case management, field based nursing services, training, structured settlement, recovery and subrogation, and loss control. Team Balance is Critical! Successful cross-functional teams have a balance of skills and personalities needed to define the roles team members will be assuming. Interview people from the disciplines you have selected to ensure that they are positive owners of their responsibilities; that they are professional and personable Getting Started Have a kick-off meeting attended by management and core members. At the meeting, you disseminate the action plan, clarify expectations, discuss challenges, define roles and responsibilities, firm up the time line and deliverable dates, and establish the schedule for forthcoming meetings. The action plan needs to be written as a matrix with spaces for noting who's responsible and time line/deliverable commitments. Go through the action plan and solicit owners and commitments. After the meeting, send a follow up action plan confirming these actions. Although you welcome input from team members, stick to the action plan you derived from the workers' comp assessment. You want input from team members about how they plan to solve existing problems, but do not change the goals and objectives. (workersxzcompxzkit) Here's Your Challenge! You must be creative about how to retrofit workers' comp management strategies into existing and often entrenched business practices. You may have to back into the existing practices of your departmental, insurance and medical resources to some extent because their practices are older and more established than yours are. Of course, we assume they have healthy practices amenable to integrating "new" workers' comp management strategies into their existing procedures. Obviously if they are either unwilling or unable to do so, you must shop other resources. And that is a whole other blog!
Author Robert Elliott, can be contacted at: Robert_Elliott@ReduceYourWorkersComp.com or 860-553-6604.
"FRAUD PREVENTION" FREE AUDIO PODCAST click here: http://www.workerscompkit.com/gallagher/mp3 By: Anthony Van Gorp, private investigator with 25 years experience.
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