Why Employers Need Options in Return-to-Work Programs

Lost time claims can lead to increased workers’ compensation premiums for an employer because they can raise the experience-modification (ex-mod) factor that is used, in part, to determine workers’ comp insurance rates.

The e-mod is one factor in workers’ comp rate determinations that employers can influence. To do so, they’ve traditionally assigned light-duty tasks to recovering employees, which can ease their transition back to work and shorten their lost time claims. The greater benefit for the employer is to its ex-mod: When the employer pays the employee’s full wages during a modified or transitional duty work assignment, the workers’ comp carrier pays for the medical treatment — meaning the claim is no longer a lost time claim, helping protect the policyholder’s e-mod rating.

On-Site Modified Duty Options

Often on-site light-duty tasks have involved filing and inventory. While those are necessary tasks, they may not always keep returning workers fully engaged. Agents can help clients come up with additional options for in-house light-duty work that needn’t be within the injured employee’s particular job set. Ask the employer:

• What tasks or jobs has no one had time to do?
• What important project never makes it to the top of the priority scale?
• What are this particular employee’s personal interests, strengths or skills that could be employed elsewhere in the company, yet be light duty?

Off-Site Transitional Duty Assignments

Some workers’ comp policyholders have resisted temporary off-site transitional duty assignments in the belief that they aren’t cost-effective. At the same time, recovering workers — whose jobs once provided them with purpose as well as income — can feel frustrated by light-duty tasks that they perceive as not being meaningful or fulfilling. They also can feel anxious about whether they’ve recovered sufficiently to resume work.

Employers can use transitional duty assignments to reduce lost time claims while helping recovering workers to feel supported and fulfilled.

Nonprofit Solutions

One such option is to cooperate with local nonprofit organizations for a three-way win: The charity gets a needed volunteer. The employee remains engaged with the company and has work that is meaningful but not overtaxing. The employer makes a useful donation to the community, heightens its public relations image, and protects its e-mod rating.

Many employees assigned to a nonprofit for return-to-work duties have found the experience to be so fulfilling that they continued to volunteer even after they returned to their normal work.

Getting to ‘Yes’

Policyholders may benefit from learning more about various return-to-work options. When suggesting the employer work with a nonprofit, for example, ask them to consider:

• The average transitional duty assignment lasts around one or two months. Paying an employee to work for a nonprofit during that time may lead to a lower ex-mod.
• Can or should the company mirror the recovering employee’s working hours and wage?
• Is there a meaningful not-for-profit opportunity that could keep a recovering worker’s life and routine as consistent as possible? Consider the advantages of that.

Helping the employer find answers can bring the conversation to a “yes.”

Build a Portfolio of Options

What is appropriate for one employee may not work for all. But designing a number of return-to-work solutions that can work for a variety of people will help policyholders retain good employees. That can be especially important in the current economy with worker shortages.

Have a realistic conversation with the employee — consulting with their nurse case manager, if one is assigned — to determine what the injured worker can do within their restrictions and if their interests can reasonably be considered.

Agent Intervention

Typically, a carrier’s claims professional will discuss the details of an employee’s return to work with a company’s human resources department. But it’s helpful for agents to have conversations with policyholders about the benefits of return-to-work options throughout their work with the policyholder.

This is a great opportunity for the agent to provide practical help to the policyholder. Leveraging their pre-existing relationship with the company’s COO or CFO, the agent can have a general conversation about return-to-work options. They can help the policyholder evaluate the complete picture by assessing overall workers’ comp premium costs compared with the benefits of return-to-work options.

The best return-to-work plans aren’t “one size fits all.”

Helping employers innovate modified or transitional duty solutions can benefit everyone — the injured worker, the employer, the workers’ compensation insurance company and the insurance agent.