Self Insured Companies
When dealing with an employee accident or employee illness, understanding the diagnosis and recovery is paramount. Managed properly, you gain control over a workers’ compensation case and limit the impact on productivity and your bottom line. Make a few poor choices and both can suffer consequences that reach far beyond productivity and costs. Or do nothing, hope for the best and if you are fortunate, everything will work itself out — not the best strategy when you weigh the risk.
ICM removes the guesswork and helps you make the best decisions to resolve the situation and keeps you in control. We’ll apply our experience to determine the appropriate course of action required to manage and resolve the case and protect your bottom line.
The Longer the Delay - the Greater the Impact on the Employee and Your Company
Flip on the television during the daytime and practically every other commercial promotes structured settlements and lawyers hawking disability claims settlement. Their goal is clear—convince people sitting at home recovering from workplace injuries to seek compensation versus focusing on returning to the job. The longer you wait to address an injured employee, the greater the chance he’ll call the 800 number on the screen. Stay engaged with the worker and help him stay on track and he’ll roll his eyes when the next talking head appears on screen.
It is proven that after just two weeks an employee who is at home begins to think of himself as disabled...just 2 weeks! A percentage will even begin to think they are permanently disabled regardless of the medical facts. With ICM, it doesn’t have to be this way.
When We Manage a Case, You Maintain Control
We are not miracle workers—and even if we were, you don’t require one to get your employee back to work. What you need is a source to manage the case and keep you informed along the way. That’s precisely what we do.
ICM assesses each case, evaluates it against our collective experience, and creates an individual recovery plan. And equally important, we keep the person feeling like an engaged employee connected to a company and not like a detached, disabled individual. We achieve this by managing against the concept of SPICE—five universal truths published in a paper by Dr. Allan Colledge, Medical Director for the Labor Commission of Utah.
S.P.I.C.E. - A Model for Reducing the Incidence and Costs of Occupationally Entitled Claims
| SIMPLICITY | A simple benign condition, if treated or diagnosed in a complicated fashion, will become complicated (e.g. a simple lumbar strain expressed as Metameric Cellulotenoperiostomyalgic Syndrome) |
| PROXIMITY | Keep the worker associated with the workplace and return him to that environment during the rehabilitation process even if it is not in the original job. |
| IMMEDIACY | Address the claim fast |
| CENTRALITY | Establish and work toward a common goal/purpose for all parties involved (e.g. back to gainful employment quickly) |
| EXPECTANCY | Individuals often fulfill the expectations placed on them (e.g. if they are made to believe they are disabled versus recovering from an accident, they will believe they are disabled). |
ICM Provides Visibility into Each Case
ICM provides as much or as little visibility into the case as you require. Our case managers issue monthly reports that document what transpired over the past 30 days and project future courses of action.
Should you have multiple cases, we provide monthly, comprehensive reports so that you see the big picture. We can also report on trends like similarities of injuries (e.g. lacerations, versus sprains,) or if multiple accidents occur in similar physical locations so you can make adjustments and reduce future incidents.
