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How Well Do You Know Your Medical Provider?

Helping injured workers recover and get back to work should not be left to chance. It requires timely treatment and responsiveness from a highly skilled health care provider who will develop and support a plan of care aimed at Return to Work (RTW) and Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI). MMI refers to the date after which further recovery from, or lasting improvement to, an injury or disease can no longer be anticipated based upon reasonable medical probability.

As Level 5 WorkComp Advisors, we consider accomplishing these goals the foundation of injury management and key to improving medical outcomes (and cost) of Workers' Compensation. We work to develop solid working relationships with medical providers that result in aggressive medical management of Workers’ Compensation claims, preventing claimants from going down the wrong road.

We recognize that there are significant differences between occupational health delivery systems and the general medical community that can greatly impact the successful management of work injury cases.

Here are some benchmarks to judge your medical provider by:

• How long does it take them to report to you and the insurance company? What is the quality of the information provided?

• Do they routinely send your employee home to “rest” instead of back to work?

• Do they coordinate and manage treatment and rehabilitation with other providers to facilitate a speedy recovery and return to work or do they routinely send your injured employee to specialists for tests?

• Do they understand your business?

• Do they know what “light duties” exist in your return to work program?

• Do they have a relationship with management?

• Do they use treatment guidelines or protocols in the care of the injured worker?

• Do they monitor utilization and outcome to assist you in targeting the 20% of claims that are driving 80% of the costs?

• Do they have the ability to identify ergonomic job risks?

• Do they provide case management?

• Do they offer or are they planning to offer web-based technology?

• Do they base decisions on a release to work on medical outcomes, not social factors?

If you’d like to learn more about the services we offer in selecting medical providers, please contact us for more information.