Lakewood Ranch, FL – WorkCompCollege.com has announced Preferred Medical as a new Gold Associate Partner. Preferred Medical is a PBM and ancillary service provider focused on delivering high-quality tailored services to payors around the country. Because of their direct interaction with both claims personnel and injured workers, they see great benefit to those they serve by investing in their entire team with WorkCompCollege.com’s Workers’ Recovery Professional (WRP) Certification program.
As part of the partnership, 30 Preferred Medical employees will go through the program to earn the WRP certification.
Robert H. Wilson, president of Workers’ Compensation Educational Services, LLC, parent company of WorkCompCollege.com, says, “It is exciting to see a service provider recognize how their team can better serve their clients with a more comprehensive understanding of the industry viewed through a workers’ recovery prism. They believe, as we do, that developing stronger skills in a strategic manner will help optimize clinical and financial outcomes, in their case through enhanced customer service a better understanding of the ‘big picture’.”
Amy Wrightsel, CEO of Preferred Medical, said, “We see the value of education to understand the whole process: how the process works from start to finish, what each person in the process experiences, and the legal, clinical, and financial influences on the process. We believe this education will allow our staff to more effectively work with everyone involved with an injured worker’s care. If we are more effective, then the overall care should be more effective, and we should all be striving for that!”
For over a decade, there has been growing recognition of the need for change in the way injuries and illnesses that are the result of an occupational incident are managed. Cocooned in a highly regulated environment and driven by economic pressures, the workers compensation system (in many ways) has evolved into one that is process-driven, where the humanity of the people served is not often given proper consideration. This contributes to expensive litigation and unnecessary delays that cause stakeholder satisfaction to lack, along with situations that are needlessly expensive and often produce inferior results.
Voices have been calling for better ways to manage claims and improve outcomes for injured employees. Different names and phrases have been used to define this idea – workers recovery, advocacy-based claims management, bio-psychosocial adoption, whole person care – but all center around the same critical realization. Treating the entire person, understanding the injured employee’s psychology and thought process, and employing clear, concise and consistent communication methods will improve clinical outcomes while reducing friction and cost. Simply put, restoring humanity to the process is a win-win for all involved.
WorkCompCollege.com is a community-driven effort designed to address that situation and will help continue the trend towards lower costs and improved results through education, information exchange and mentorship.
The base certification curriculum will be launched live at the SAWCA conference in Colorado Springs on November 17, 2022. State-specific, discipline-specific, master’s and other advanced programs are in the planning stages for development over the next year. In addition, the school will provide an alumni association for continuing education and community.
Source: WorkCompCollege