It has been said time and time again that successful adjusters and claims professionals will have to be good multi-taskers.
There is simply no way around this. If you are terrible at doing a lot of things at once, across multiple mediums, then you will fail at this job. But don’t feel bad because a lot of people that fail at this job still end up working in it. They work in this field for decades and the sad truth is that they are terrible at their job. But they are there, and it is a body at a desk, and sometimes that is all a carrier is looking for. Someone to put out whatever the “Fire of the day” may be.
Time for my disclaimer, not all claims personnel are awful at their job. In fact, only a small percentage is terrible and still somehow gainfully employed. Most adjusters care about their jobs and produce a quality work product.
So now that I got that out of the way, I am going to hyper-focus on the terrible claims personnel out there. There are a group of you that are at every carrier, in every state, and you have been doing this type of work for a long time.
The first handful of years if you are awful at this job you either:
1. Quit because you have been audited down to nothing and you just cannot take it anymore
Or
2. Slowly migrated your way from the mailroom up to a medium-exposure adjuster and you are learning as you go.
But, the person I am talking to that is terrible at their job, you have been doing this for over 10-15 years. Sometimes over 20 years. You have been the proverbial thing that has survived it all. You survived field adjusting, changes in technology, changes in management, downsizing, outsourcing, mergers, etc. You survived it all!
You may not know why you are awful at your job, but I do. I have solved the rubix cube of the terrible adjuster!! The answer is………..you allow yourself and your opinions to be influenced by someone that has limited to zero involvement in the claim. This alone has warped you from being a great adjuster and one that sticks to their guns, to a ho-hum fence jumper that really has looked to everyone else to make the decision for them. Then when the palace comes crumbling down and you point the finger at the 13 people you consulted on this claim.
Those 25 people or however many people you talk to about work–those are the ones that are doing your job. Sound confusing? Let me break it down:
Forces Influencing Adjuster Opinion
There are two types of forces:
1. Outside forces
2. Inside forces
Outside forces are vendors and your spider web of professionals in the business that you use for your claims. These consist of outside Legal Counsel, IME marketers, former claims people turned salespeople for any type of DME-IME-SIU-TCM-NCM-VOC-MSA whatever service that just tell you what you want to hear in order to get some business from you. This includes former bosses demoted to adjusters at other carriers, former coworkers out of the business, the Internet, and so on. Anything or anyone else you can come up with that doesn’t work for your employer is considered an outside force.
Inside forces come about a different way. You, the awful adjuster, become jaded on your own claims due to internal and external claim issues. For example, this can come from a poor audit scoring. Your manager calls you in the office to go over your last audit, and big surprise the results are terrible. These claims were questionable and maybe accepted too early, so you are told to do a better investigation. Awful Adjuster takes this as meaning you should start filing some denials on claims, in order to make it look like you are trying to be more aggressive (Don’t laugh—these people are out there and probably handling YOUR claims).
Example #2 of inside forces are your own inside vendors swaying compensability on a questionable case. These usually consist of in-house attorneys, nurse case managers, SIU staff, and maybe a vocational person.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have a questionable claim on your hands. Protocol says to send it to all of these people so they can “Assess” whether they need to be involved or not. This takes time. Plus another big surprise they all say they need to be involved in your claim! Why? If they are not involved in any claims, they are not working.
So, inside vendors start to flex a case as being compensable. The attorney says it could be a tough defense to deny this case, but they are willing to do it if you want. But for now they need more investigation, they have to send out subpoenas, etc. The nurse says the medical is subjective but the injury sounds legit, and if this person has surgery they will need nurse case management on the file to help with the recovery. The SIU guy didn’t find anything out but they need more time. Your voc person says that the worker can work but probably not in their regular job; hence they will need some major vocational workup once they are nearing MMI.
Adjuster Needs To Determine If Injury Happened In Course & Scope of Employment
This questionable case is not sounding good. You are using the opinions of your peers to steer your boat. But you forgot the most important thing–to do your job, which is to determine if the injury occurred in the course and scope of employment!!!! Because if it did not, and you know why it did not, and you have proof of why it did not, then all the rest of that crap everyone else is telling you is total garbage!
Awful Adjuster forgets about that though, because they are already envisioning the inevitable which is that no matter if the claim is denied or accepted, they do not want to be the one that made the call. There is no way they are going to fall on the sword. So they farm it out to all of these internal/external people for opinions. Now Awful Adjuster has people to point the finger to should this file be a disaster down the road.
I want you to think about that file example. I know this exists out there, and I have witnessed it with my own eyes. I have seen it time and time again. Everywhere.
CYA (Cover Your Butt) Protocol
Do you know why this happens? Because everyone is protecting themselves from everyone else. This is CYA (Cover Your Butt) protocol. The biggest CYA out there is the awful adjuster. But it is not just their fault. Look at those other “Forces.” Everyone had an angle in order to try and get adjuster to push the file their way in order to secure a sale or a commission, or some job security. This is what it is all about today. Every involved party is either protecting themselves, protecting their employment, or trying to secure a commission or sale. You can bet that they do not care about Joe Worker at all. Joe is just a speed bump on the road that is about to be put through the gauntlet of having to deal with 13 people at once ranging from their 3rd different adjuster on the file to a voc person to their DME contact and whomever else.
Why did Awful Adjuster get this way? If they were around for 20+ years, they must like the work in some aspects right?
Yes that’s right. And I know why they don’t care. They don’t care because they themselves have no authority, no accountability, and no real involvement in what goes in on the claim. Once this happened, it was over. Awful Adjuster is just another face working from 8-4pm and they figured out a way to tweak the system.
This is sad, but unfortunately this is reality. Sure the entire system needs to be overhauled, and the way claims are handled need to be addressed, and adjusters need to go back to having more authority and more accountability on files. Someday this may happen, but until then it is the client and their injured worker that is the one being harmed the most.
Author Michael B. Stack, CPA, Principal, Amaxx Risk Solutions, Inc. is an expert in employer communication systems and part of the Amaxx team helping companies reduce their workers compensation costs by 20% to 50%. He is a writer, speaker, and website publisher. www.reduceyourworkerscomp.com. Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.
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