Good vs Better Workers’ Comp Return to Work Framework

Your return to work program is not working. Your work comp program is not working. Hello. My name is Michael Stack. I’m the CEO of Amaxx. And today we’re going to talk about return to work, and I want to talk about a philosophical approach to making it as successful as possible, thereby making your work comp program successful and by successful. I mean, you’re driving down work comp costs drastically and significantly improving work comp outcomes. You need to have both to be truly successful in workers’ compensation. I’m going to walk you through a quick framework of good versus better in work comp return to work and what those look like. Let me go through these quickly here.

“Good” in Workers’ Comp Return to Work

Good in workers’ comp return to work best practices looks like this first.

1. Job descriptions.
2. Medical restrictions.
3. Assign transitional duty from a job bank

So you get your job descriptions. What are the physical requirements of this job? What are the medical restrictions? What are the capabilities of the individual? And then we assign them a job. If you’re doing these three things, you probably have a good or what I would call average or what I would also call traditional return to work. This is very, top-down very, top-down, you’re driving all these things. These three elements, you’re driving those three elements down and you’re putting your employees through this process.

“Better in Workers’ Comp Return to Work

I’m going to give you a little bit of a better concept. You can do a little bit of a better way to do it. And by better, I mean, it’s going to be driving down your cost more by better. I mean, it’s going to be driving, improving your injured worker outcomes.

It’s going to be reducing your duration. It’s going to make your return to work program, actually lot more successful. Here’s what better looks like you get all three of these things. You get job descriptions, you get medical restrictions, you get transitional duty, all three of the same elements that we have in this good program with one really, really big difference.

The Big Difference Is You’re Going to Ask

The big difference here is that you’re going to ask, you’re going to collaborate. You’re going to bring into play into this whole system, the injured worker, the injured worker’s idea. You’re going to talk to the supervisor. You’re going to get the medical provider involved. You’re going to get other stakeholders involved, the adjuster, and we’re all going to be on the same page, talking about this. We’re going to be talking about this. And most importantly, you’re putting the injured worker involved. You’re making them a highly integral parts of this whole process.

Collaboration is King in Return to Work

So when you’re talking about these job descriptions, when you’re talking about the restrictions, you’re also talking to the injured worker about them and you’re saying, Hey, what do you think? You know, do you think you’ll be able to get back to work? Okay. When do you think you’ll be able to get back to work? What part of your job do you think you can do? What are some of these essential things that we can maybe modify to help you get back to work and help you deliver success for our organization and a rapid improvement in recovery for you? Big, big difference. Is this word ask, is this word collaboration through this process? If you’re doing just these things traditionally, that’s good. That’s not bad. You’re probably doing a lot better than nothing, but this is better. Again, my name is Michael Stack and the CEO of Amaxx. And remember your work today and worker’s 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 the founder & lead trainer of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center, which offers the Certified Master of Workers’ Compensation national designation.

Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.

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