Doctors: Employers should carefully chose the physician to initially send injured employees. A physician must understand the employer willingness to provide light light duty. Have the physician visit the facility. Also visit the physician's office to determine the accessibility of employers to the doctors.
Employers need to be able to respectfully talk to the treating physician, so that they can ask questions, and discuss concerns. However, an employer must learn how and when it is best to communicate with the doctor. Your employee is not the only person the doctor is treating. As such, the doctor may be overloaded, and your phone call may not be a priority at the time.
From the defense lawyer side: A proactive, effective return to work program will reduce the settlement amount. An effective return to work program does allow an insure insurance carrier to minimize the time spent on a claim, which is a substantial benefit for everyone.
An employer needs to make an attempt to resolve issues before firing an injured employee. A disgruntled, now fired, employee who feels they may be wronged can cause yet more problems than merely a workers compensation claim, and larger settlement. Retaliation claims may be filed with both the workers compensation system and OSHA, ADA, or Wage and Hour claims may be filed. If the company has less than stellar hiring practices and policies there may be other claims an employee can make. Defending these claims, valid or not, is expensive.
Documentation is imperative. Improper or sloppy documentation can demonstrate to a workers comp or liability judge that the employer doesn't have the proper systems in place, doesn't care, and obviously the employer has some culpability and should be held responsible. The employer must be able to defend by documentation claims filed against them, or the judge will side with the employee. Once a claim against an employer is successful, additional claims may be filed by other employees.
Best Practices:
- Plan in place for procedures needed for incidents – everything from who investigates the incident, to making sure the WC carrier and HR are properly notified.
- Have employees sign off each week that they were not injured, and did not witness an injury, or if they were or knew of someone who was - how it occurred. That way, in this time of lay-offs, an employer has the documentation necessary to defend a workers compensation claim filed after the lay-off occurred.
Best Practices for Return to Work:
Return to Work must start at the top of the organization to be successful.
Return to Work benefits the employee, the employer, the insurer, the adjuster – the entire system!
Policies need to be in place to facilitate the return injured employees to return as soon as possible to productive meaningful work within their restrictions.
Stop seeing injured employees as damaged good that need to be discarded.
Anticipate what the injured work is likely to do, and prepare for it in your policies.
If you explain your expectations to your employees through-out, they are far more likely to follow those expectations.
Also train your supervisors on the expectations of the return to work policy.
If at all possible have the injured worker stay in their pre-injury production area during light duty. Many tasks can be carved out of the normal work day that meet the restrictions of the injured worker. Similar tasks can be carved out of others stations to keep the employee active.
- Burying your head in the sand as far as workplace injuries and return to work does nothing but open yourself to future litigation!
See more here: http://nationalreturntoworkweek.org/events/
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