What If The Doctor Won’t Release My Employee to Work?

When an employee is injured at work, the primary goal of workers’ compensation stakeholders is return that employee to work return that injured employee to work. Hello, my name is Michael Stack and the CEO of Amaxx.

Overcoming Return to Work Hurdles

Today I want to talk about overcoming hurdles that prevent that from happening. One of those hurdles is when the doctor refuses to release that injured worker to work. So the doctor refuses to release that injured worker to work. What do you do? What do you do you want to put them back in the transitional duty type job? You have a job potentially ready for them, but the doctor seems to be holding that injured worker hostage. So what are you doing as a solution is relatively simple, or can be relatively simple if you have the right system in place and you have the right team in place, what you do there.

Leverage Medical Advisor

And that situation is you leverage your medical advisor. So you leverage your medical advisor and they have a peer-to-peer conversation and they have a peer to peer conversation. And so Dr. Smith calls Dr. Jones and says, okay, Dr. Jones, did I understand that, uh, you know, at the Acme company here, Tom Tom’s, uh, you know, Tom Smith, uh, he’s wants to go back to work. The employer wants to go back to work, but you’re there there’s some challenges there. Can you tell me a little bit more about that so that I can understand? And then Dr. Smith can say, well, did you consider this et cetera, et cetera, they have this peer conversation.

And more times than not, that individual is released, that individual is released to work this peer to peer conversation. This medical advisor is a hugely valuable part of your team to address these medical scenarios that are beyond your expertise, beyond the expertise of an adjuster beyond the expertise. Sometimes even of a case manager, it needs to have that peer to peer conversation, physician to physician in order to drive these improved outcomes in order to change this behavior, having a medical advisor on your team is a valuable piece.

Talk With Your Claims Organization

So how do you do that? Talk to your claims organization, talk to your TPA, talk to your carrier, find out what resources are available. There’s a ton of independent companies that can also provide the service if your carrier or TPA is not willing to, or is not able to, or doesn’t have the resources or whatever. You can have this on a part-time basis. A medical advisor come in oftentimes for a relatively reasonable fee and make a big difference and a big impact on that claim. Again my name is Michael Stack and 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 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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