Relieve Workers' Comp Burden by Assessing Honesty, Resiliency, and Attitude

Hey there Michael Stack here. I’m the CEO of Amaxx and I’m also the founder of the Amaxx Workers Comp Training Center. Now I read a pretty interesting blog post written by Karen Yotis on the Lexis Nexis legal newsroom blog. You can find a link to that article below.

Karen Yotis Blog Post: Morbidity, Disability, Cost, Pain & Distress: Exposing the True Burden of Workers’ Compensation

Assessing the Burden of Work Related Injuries

But in that post she referenced an article in the American Journal of Public Health entitled Assessing the Burden of Work Related Injuries, Illness and Distress. Now the point of this article in the journal was really calling attention to the need for more research on understanding the more global impact of work related illnesses. It talked about the family impact, the work impact and really this overall wellbeing indication including the social consequences. Now there’s some political drivers and motivations behind really the desire to write this article and desire for more of that research but what I’m more interested in is the impact that it has on you. And your organization. And the perspective that can be gained from the motivation of this article.

So I want to talk about that point. And I have two how-tos to share:

Workers’ Compensation Goes Far Beyond The Injury

The first is realizing as is referenced in the article that workers compensation goes far beyond the injury to one individual and the pain that’s occurring in their back or their shoulder or their knee and the ability to get that person back to work. We talk a lot about direct costs and indirect costs of workers compensation and realizing what that means for our bottom line. But I also want to call attention to those psychosocial and social consequences within your own organization. The impact that it has on the amount of trust your employees have. The impact that it has on the engagement of your workforce and the impact it has on the amount that that workforce feels you care about them. Studies have shown and reinforced the importance of trust and care in the recovery of workers compensation and workers compensation costs.

Assess Honesty, Resiliency, Attitude

The second point and one of political drivers and the point for you to be aware of is that 5% of workers compensation claims account for 80% of workers compensation costs. 5% of claims account for 80% of workers compensation costs. So from your organization’s standpoint, what does that mean? I want to give you a how to on this. This comes from Dr. Christopher Brigham’s book Living Abled and a presentation that we gave together last year.

Now there’s some more sophisticated modeling and serving that you could implement in your program but I want to give you some simple things to look out for when a claim occurs, that if these things are in play, you may need to bring in some additional support and resources for having that claim prevented from being a much larger and more significant and costly claim than it needs to be.

Take a look at the employee’s honesty, resiliency and attitude. Honesty, resiliency and attitude. If the person is less than truthful, typically in their employment career, it they’ve had minor setbacks that have caused them major setbacks and they have a real tough time getting over those, or they have a poor attitude at work. These are clear red flag indicators that you’re going to possibly need some more intervention from preventing that claim from being much larger and much more costly than it has to be.

So have that global perspective and be aware of those claims because it will have a dramatic impact not only on your bottom line, but also on the lives of your injured workers.

Again I’m Michael Stack with Amaxx. And remember your success in workers’ compensation is defined by your integrity. Be great.

Michael Stack - Amaxx Author Michael Stack, Principal, 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 & lead trainer of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center. .

Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.

Workers’ Comp Roundup Blog: https://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/

Do not use this information without independent verification. All state laws vary. You should consult with your insurance broker, attorney, or qualified professional.