What to Say After an Employee is Injured at Work

It turns out that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is not exactly true. We know that words are powerful. Words are impactful. Words have a dramatic impact in the way that we feel and also a dramatic impact on the outcome of worker’s compensation claims and some of the highest value words, some of the most impactful words, are those words that we say immediately following an injury.

Hello, my name is Michael stack and I’m the CEO of Amaxx and today I’m going to walk you through a very simple dialogue. It’s a very simple script to follow. Immediately following that injury, we call this the first day phone call or the first day visit at the hospital, which is even better if you go to visit that injured worker and you’ll know when you go into that room, or when you pick up that phone.

This post is one of the series on Step by Step Process to Master Worker’s Compensation: 

• Workers Compensation Management Starts With Assessment and Training
• Taking the “I” Out of the Workers’ Compensation Team

Simple Dialog to Follow for Injury Follow Up

You’re going to walk into that hospital room, you’ll know exactly what to say and you’ll know if you follow this little dialogue, it’s going to put that claim on the path to success. I want to give you three little categories to follow and walk through here.

• The first category falls under empathy or care. So first thing you want to do is express empathy or care. And you’re going to say, Hey John, we’re sorry he got hurt. We’re sorry this happened to you. How are you doing? How are you doing? Are you doing okay? Is everything okay with you? We’re really sorry. How you doing? Very simple, easy way to open up that conversation.
  • Number two, ask, is there anything I can do to help? So is there anything I can do to help you done? You know, do you need me to call your family? Did you leave any clothes at the at that works that I can pick up for you or you need a coordinate? Anything for you, anything I can do to help you? Sorry, you got hurt. How are you doing anything I can do to help after you follow this little technical piece? And of course you’re gonna listen to the answer to that very, I think obvious, but not so obvious in the way that people execute this. Listen to the answer. Have a little dialogue.
• Next piece, I want you to get to go to this, this category, what I call technical. So then you’re going to go into some of the technical category and you’re going to say, how’s your medical, how’s your medical treatment going so far? How are these doctors, how the nurses treating you? Everything goes all, okay as far from a medical perspective. Any questions about that?
  • Number two, are you, do you know where you get your prescriptions? Do you know where to get all that information? You know, here’s your health ticket card that has your prescription number, this is how it’s all going to go. Do you know how to get some of this squared away? Some of that technical piece.
  • And then the third part of this is you have any questions you know about our work comp program. You know, do, do you understand the wage replacement? Do you understand, you know, our transitional duty policy, kind of how all that functions as far as our return to work and getting you back to go to full duty, all that stuff. Any questions about that? I can answer for you. John to make sure that you fully understand what’s happening. So you express the empathy, you go into the technical pieces. And then the last piece here is we want you back to work. We want you back to work. You know, John, we’re really sorry this happened.
• As long as we go through all these questions and I want to let you know we’re excited to have you back. You know, we’re looking forward to helping you get this thing all squared away for you. Very simple dialogue, but also extraordinarily impactful. Follow that little three-step sequence and express the empathy, express the care, go into the technical pieces, and then we want you back. And if you do that, you will be setting your claim up for success.

  FREE DOWNLOAD: “9-Element Blueprint To Create Your Workers’ Comp Employee Brochure”

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 company’s 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: http://blog.reduceyourworkerscomp.com/

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