Who’s In Control Of Your Workers Compensation Program?

We all like to be in control, right? Or at least feel like we’re in control anyway, but we know that there are times, and there are situations when the chickens are actually ruling the roost.

The Chickens Are Ruling The Roost

I’m going to show you a little clip. This is a YouTube clip from the show Super Nanny to really show and explain my point a little bit further. Let’s take a look at this together.

Donuts! Donut, donut. Please mommy! Please mommy! I’ll be extra good if you give me a donut!

Now anyone who has children probably knows that scene maybe all too well. My wife and I have four kids ourselves, so it’s something that we’re working on regularly.

If that parent gives in to the child and gves her the donut, who’s in control of that situation? If you get a note like this from Joe Martin, that says no work until seen by this office again, and you accept that note, who’s in control of that situation?

It’s going to create a worse outcome for that child long term if you give her that short term fix instead of working on the attitude and the behavioral challenges to create a better human being in the long term. The same is true for your work comp management program. If you accept a note like this from Joe without getting the needed information and plug him into your system, you’re creating long-term challenges and you’re creating a very expensive work comp system for your organization.

Information Needed At Time Of Injury To Take Control

Here’s the information that you need in order to take control of an injury at the start of that claim. You need to know the information about the injury itself, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the treatment plan. You also need to know some important information with regards to return to work. You need to know the estimated return to work date, as well as the medical restrictions from that treating physician for what that individual can and cannot do.

Finally you need to know some pertinent scheduling type information. Things like the next appointment date as well as that doctor’s contact phone number. If you get that information that puts you in control. If you deny that child the donut at that time, you start to get in control of that situation, creating a better long term outcome in both scenarios.

I’m Michael Stack with AMAXX, and remember your success in worker’s compensation is defined by your integrity, so be great.

Author Michael Stack, Principal, COMPClub, Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their work comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and is founder of COMPClub, an exclusive member training program on workers compensation cost containment best practices. Through these platforms he is in the trenches on a working together with clients to implement and define best practices, which allows him to continuously be at the forefront of innovation and thought leadership in workers’ compensation cost containment. Contact: [email protected].

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