Creating confusion costs you money. Creating confusion costs you and your organization or your clients organization money. Hello, my name is Michael Stack, I’m the CEO of Amaxx. And today I want to talk with you about the language we’re using to communicate with our injured workers. The language we’re using to communicate with our injured workers. Are you causing confusion? Are you causing them to be fearful of the words you’re using?
Workers’ Comp Abbreviations and Confusion
So let’s go over an example. Say an injured worker gets hurt and you tell them, “We’re going to pay you TTD until the time at which point you’re able to return to work. And then we’re going to work on your medical until you reach MMI. And then at that point, you may need to go see an IME in order to help us establish a permanency rating to settle your case. And depending on the severity of your injury, you may need to then apply for SSDI.” Excuse me? I’m sorry, what was that that you said? We tend to forget that the terminology and the abbreviations and the words that we’re using that are specific to our industry, just like any other industry, are not commonplace among everyone else outside of our industry.
Clear and Simple Communication
So I want you to establish this idea of clear and simple communication. First off, are you calling your injured workers or injured employees claimants? Does that sound very nice? Does that present a very welcoming picture that you’re going to take care of them, that there’s going to be an established level of trust? I think not. So let me challenge your communication and that verbiage that you’re using.
Next piece, I want to outline very simply for you this employee brochure. So when an employee gets injured, you want to establish that trust, that communication right out of the gates. I want to give you a little bit of framework, three-part framework here, or simplified three-part framework for this employee brochure. And you can download this value piece below here, The Nine Elements to Employee Brochure, that I’m going to dive into this a little bit deeper. I want to outline this very quickly.
Set Expectations with Employee Brochure
So first off, first piece, you want to establish when an employee gets injured, even before they’re injured, the time prior you’re going through this with them and then at the time of injury you’re running through it. Work comp 101, what it is, what they can expect from you as far as their benefits. This includes, their wages, how are they going to get paid and are you calling this an indemnity, are you calling it wages? A lot of people don’t know what the heck indemnity means. So are you calling it your wages or wage loss? Your medical and their pharmacy, how are they going to get medical treatment? How are they going to get their prescription drugs et cetera. Establish these expectations. What does it look like as far as return to work? And don’t call it RTW, call it returning to work, getting back it the workforce. Use language that makes sense to people that are not in the work comp industry.
And then lastly, what you expect of them. We expect you to report to work, this is an established part of our organization, we expect you to communicate with us, we expect you not to commit fraudulent acts, et cetera, et cetera. You establish this expectation right out of the front using simple words that everyone can understand and it’s going to get you off to the races as far as getting that claim going in the right direction.
Again, my name is Michael Stack, I’m the CEO of Amaxx. And remember, your work today in workers compensation can have a dramatic impact on your companies’ bottom line. But it will have a dramatic impact on someone’s’ life. So be great.
Author Michael Stack, CEO Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers’ compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their workers’ comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is a 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/
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