I would like to mention a big mistake employers make with their workers’ compensation insurance programs and their injured employees. And that is, once an injury occurs, we find that many employers notify the insurance company and hand off and advocate responsibility to that insurance company to handle the claim, to handle the injury. We find that this is a big mistake. There is a key role for employers to stay engaged, both before the injury occurs and especially after the injury occurs.

The Institute trains and certifies agents to assist employers in setting up these pre-injury and post-injury strategies and processes and to help them build capabilities because about 50% of the cost of an injury is unnecessary. It’s because of misdirected medical care. It’s because of breakdowns in communication. And often times, if an injured employee does not come back to work as soon as they’re capable of coming back because of the mess this system can be and the lack of processes and the lack of steps and the lack of training of knowing what to do when an injury occurs.

One of our primary objectives is to assist employers in setting up an injury management program. We call it secondary prevention. Primary prevention is preventing the injury from happening in the first place, but employees still get injured. And once an employee gets injured, it’s critical to deploy secondary prevention tactics and know what the steps are and have a planned process that needs to be deployed as soon as the employee is injured, which we want to get that employee happy, healthy, and productive and back to their normal life and normal work duties, just as soon as possible.

We have found at the Institute, that there is a lack of consistent and comprehensive processes with many employers. And it is our objective, through our trained and certified agents to assist employers in setting up those injury management practices.