Leaders Speak

As the workers’ compensation industry redefines cost containment strategies, we must include emerging industries such as interpretation. Payers should apply the same level of scrutiny to interpretation services and its appropriate intervention points as they do to case management, utilization review and bill review. Let’s look at a quick history… [Continue Reading]

Over the years, the popularity of self-insurance has grown steadily. When rates for primary insurance skyrocketed in the 1970s, companies turned to self-insurance as a more economical way to cover workers’ compensation and many continue to pursue this alternative risk funding option to this day. Employers that didn’t possess… [Continue Reading]

The subject of self-insuring workers’ compensation has received a lot of criticism over the years, however, it continues to be a successful and cost-effective business option for employers when funding their workers’ compensation needs. Whether it be a large employer self-insuring alone or smaller employers that band together to form… [Continue Reading]

Today, workers’ compensation claims are often complicated by a number of factors, including a high volume of transactions; manual, labor-intensive business processes; delayed communications, and many other administrative hassles. Workers’ compensation leaders realize that technology is… [Continue Reading]

Although claims frequency has slowed, severity and complexity of claims are on the rise. To help address this challenge, many claim organizations are now partnering with service providers in ancillary areas of the claims process. Traditionally, the specialty referral process lacked a sophisticated IT infrastructure…[Continue Reading]

A debate has arisen in the medical community regarding the appropriateness of medical marijuana in treating pain. Proponents claim that it is not as harmful or addictive as the most common pain medications and is effective in treating pain that is not responsive to other therapies. Several organizations within… [Continue Reading]

Unless you have a detailed understanding of the health care and insurance marketplaces, you may be one of the many who think that there is little difference between group health insurance and workers’ compensation benefits. Having been privy to both of these industries, I am frequently asked about these differences… [Continue Reading]

As 2011 winds down, it seems like an appropriate time to re-feature all of the great content that has been provided by Leaders from the industry for our Leaders Speak Section. So, as we close out the year and prep to bring you more all new content in 2012, we’ll be adding new links to the list each day for you to check out!
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A theme that I have come to see with patients in treatment and those whom I have evaluated for various claims is the concept of “Locus of Control (LOC).” This is defined in the following web reference as: “An individual’s generalized expectations concerning where control over subsequent events resides. In other words, who or what is responsible for what happens… [Continue Reading]

Every injury and disability claim must be examined individually and generalizations used cautiously. With that caveat, it is apparent and obvious to anyone who has been involved in reviewing and managing injury and disability claims that who is hired is often a much more useful determinant of injury and disability occurrence than what happens once an individual is… [Continue Reading]