How One Doctor Really Can Make a Difference

Here is a true story  about how one doctor successfully helped his client-employers reduce workers’ compensation costs by 50%.  And further reductions are seen in lost time, light duty days, replacement workers costs, and cost of treatment of employees who claim work-related injury.

His name is Dr. Nathaniel Evans – let’s read his story.  Thank you for the contribution, Dr. Evans. It is very enlightening.

As I reflect  on almost 25 years of solo practice in occupational medicine, I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to help my clients (employers) and their employees meet their objectives of health, prosperity and productivity. 

When I bought  my occupational medicine practice, after serving for six years as Chief of the Emergency Department of a local hospital, I entered the practice with a commitment to serve the needs of my patients and their employers with attentive, compassionate, effective and cost-effective care. I know I’ve succeeded in my mission when I am greeted by smiles from patients returning for follow-up visits, annual examinations or new injury treatment. 

Equally important  to me are the statements from clients telling me I have reduced their lost time, OSHA recordables, and workers’ compensation costs by 50% or more. The principles I’ve used are universal and they work when applied. 

Unfortunately, the tendency of most occupational medicine organizations is to seek low-cost providers (often nurse practitioners or physicians’ assistants) to provide primary care in occupational medicine. Such providers often lack the experience and the depth of clinical understanding to allow them to optimally and cost-effectively manage the spectrum of clinical problems seen in an occupational medicine office.

My clients have much  to say about savings resulting from my services. Just one year after switching from a local hospital’s occupational medicine service to become my client, the Mid-Atlantic Distribution Center for a very large chain of restaurants wrote to me and reported having seen a more than  50% reduction   in lost time and light duty days as a result of my services. He further reported   his employees were pleased with the “family doctor type attention” in my office. 

Two years  after becoming my client, a food processing company employing 500 workers reported, “Our lost days have been reduced drastically: well over 50%.” 

The Safety Manager   of a plastics manufacturing plant employing 104 people reported that after just two years, my services saved his company $309,000 or $1,485 per employee per year. 

 

Two of  my clients (manufacturing companies) each achieved 1,000,000 work hours without a single lost-time injury. 

The underlying   essential ingredient making such savings possible is goal-oriented, attentive communication between doctor and patient, coupled with (when necessary) communication with employer, or employer representatives. When such communication is exercised by a knowledgeable occupational medicine provider whose goal is to expedite the safe return of injured patients to productivity and to avoid ineffective or unnecessary medical procedures, tests or therapies, patients do well and employers experience dramatic savings.