Do you know that up to 80% of workers compensation costs are caused by only 5% of workers’ compensation claims. Hello, my name is Michael stack and I’m the CEO of AMAXX. Those exact figures, the 80% of costs are driven by 5% of claims, the exact numbers of 80% and 5% don’t really matter. I’ve heard a lot of different estimates could be 10% driving, 90% of cost or 15% driving 85% doesn’t really matter, so don’t get caught up too much in those numbers. The point is that a small percentage of claims drive a very, very large percentage of workers’ compensation costs and the other real wrinkle in that and the point of today’s video is to recognize that up to 50% of those costs, that huge bucket that we’re talking about are preventable, are preventable.
Small Injuries Become Big Problems
It’s those cases that end up with a really small shoulder injury. It should be pretty standard run of the mill type issue. The person gets fixed up, get them back to work, couple of weeks, they’re back in business. But it’s those claims where it’s this regular run of the mill type injuries that end up putting that person out of work for the rest of their life, causing a very major negative impact on that person’s personal life and of course, driving significant workers’ compensation dollars.
So how do we prevent that? How do we get in front of that? How do we identify those claims early on in that process so that we can prevent that very negative impact on that person’s life and of course, dramatically reduced the worker’s compensation costs. Now there’s several ways for us to do this. There are some informal techniques as far as just measuring that person’s resiliency at work. How resilient have they been are when they’re dealing with a regular run of the mill problem in their daily work life?
Are they really great at handling that problem or really poorly at handling that problem? How they deal with that as a great indication of how they’re going to deal with the challenge of an injury. So those little informal screening techniques and those work very well, and we just need to pay attention and tune into that a little bit better.
Formal Screening Technique – Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire
And then there’s formal screening techniques. And then what I want to talk with you about today is a really great formal screening technique called the Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire. So the Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire. Now this was invented by a psychologist in Sweden and the nice thing that you need to know about this is that it’s actually free to use, it’s free to use, it’s in the public domain. You can Google the Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire and you can find the test, you could find how to rate it and you can implement this yourself at your claims organization if you’re an employer working with your adjuster or case managers on how to implement this.
So that’s what you need to know first, highly effective when they’ve done studies on this, and this has been proven and validated over years and years and they’ve actually sharpened it up and shortened up the form now. Now there’s only 12 questions. There used to be I believe 23 or 27 when they first started it. Now it’s down and it’s called a short form 12 or the SF 12. You administer this and it could be administered by a nurse case manager, it could be administered by the adjuster or could be a third party outside vendor that’s just administering and specializes in this type of thing. But it’s administered two to four weeks into the claim. So, there’s, you know, the person’s hasn’t gotten back to work yet. It’s not really going or getting off the ground or going the way that it’s supposed to, or they’ve been back to work, but they’re on modified duty and they’re not progressing as well as you would like to see them.
Gain Information to Get In-Front of High-Risk Claims
Or there’s just some other red flag indicators that you think, let’s get a little more info on this one because we want to get in front of this and we want to prevent that major creeping catastrophic impact on the personal life and cost. So a Orebro Pain Screening Questionnaire administered by the case manager adjuster, or third party vendor two to four weeks into the claim, gives us those early indicators that there may be some additional intervention that is needed on John Smith’s particular claim to help John get over whatever hurdle it is that’s preventing him from recovery. Look it up, use it, it’s free to use, and it’s highly effective.
Again my name is Michael stack. I’m the CEO of AMAX, and remember your work today in workers’ compensation can have a dramatic effect on your company’s bottom line as we’ve demonstrated today in this pain screening questionnaire, 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: http://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/
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