Effective Return to Work Programs

Effective Return to Work Programs
Prior to completing this case study assignment, you should review the PDF document titled ABCs of Experience Rating (Links to an external site.) from NCCI. This document will help you better understand experience rating and how workers’ compensation losses impact your experience rating, workers’ compensation premiums, and costs.
Case Study
You have been hired as a safety and health consultant for We-R-Comp Insurers, a mono-line workers’ compensation insurance carrier. As a safety and health consultant, your job is to prevent and control losses with approximately 50 different business organizations in your territory. Today, you are going to visit an employer that manufacturers aviation parts including pilot seats, harnesses, and related equipment.
1.This employer has approximately 90 employees.
2.The organization reported 10 workers’ compensation claims last year.
3.Four of the workers’ compensation claims were medical only claims and were fairly minor; however, 6 of the claimants still have not returned to work as a result of their injuries.
4.One of the injured workers amputated a finger, one sustained a broken foot as a result of a dropped product, and four workers sustained back injuries.
During your meeting, you met with the safety manager. You established a plan to prevent future injuries by addressing physical hazards, machine guarding, and ergonomics with the safety director. Also, during the meeting, you inquired about the injured workers and their return to work status. The safety manager told you that workers will not be returned until they are 100% healthy. This appears to be a long -term approach as the organization’s experience modification factor is 1.80. At this time, you decide to discuss the merits of an effective return to work program and make a recommendation that the organization establish a formalized return to work program.
Complete the following activities associated with the case study by submitting a paper with your responses. Your paper should be submitted in APA format.
1.Discuss with the safety manager what an experience modification factor is, explain the significance of the organizations experience modification factor rate of 1.80 and discuss how the lack of return to work programs and initiatives has contributed to this modification factor.
2.Explain the benefits of an effective return to work program and explain how this may positively impact the injured workers and the organization.
3.Provide examples and discuss with the safety manager how various psychosocial and organizational factors within the work organization can influence a workers’ desire to return to work.
4.Make recommendations to the safety manager with regard to how they can establish a return to work program and how the organization can change to support return to work.