Disability management
Encyclopedia : D : DI : DIS : Disability management
Disability management refers to the policy of businesses ensuring employees receive treatment and transitioning back to active return to work as soon as possible. The disability picture changes over time due to rising benefit costs, WSIB processes, and focus on human rights. Many employers have made significant progress in the management of occupational work-related injuries given the underlying financial deterrents not to return employees to work. The WSIB or the various workers’ compensation commissions across Canada have made the financial incentives for employers to return injured employees to work indisputable and easy to quantify.
The absence of a common concerted effort to manage all disabilities will not resolve the underlying issue of the human and financial costs of disabilities. What is needed is the integration of disability management principles to the non-occupational and occupational side. South of the border these discussions have been going on for about a decade and although some progress has been made toward integration the division between occupational (Workers’ Compensation) and non-occupational (sick leave, STD, LTD) still clear in many companies. The early work in exploring integration of disability management dates back to 1989, WBGH investigated and spoke highly of the positives of integration. In Canada, the history of Workers’ Compensation being government legislated and regulated and non-occupational being either self-funded by the employer or an insured program has created, silo’s at the employer. Health and safety or Occupation Health handle Workers’ Compensation and Human Resources or Finance handle non occupational.
Integrating information
Integrated disability management means a single management system for occupational and non-occupational disability. A main element of integrated disability management is the quantifying of costs and cross-referencing of information. This integration affords greater oversight into employee patterns, major causes for lost time, durations of absences and the overall costs of absences. A disability management program and the documentation it generates on employee illness/injury, treatment, rehabilitation, job accommodation requirements, and so forth goes a long way toward protecting companies from losses. A company can show through its disability management program that it tries whenever possible to accommodate ill or injured employees regardless of the cause.Defined process, practices and policies
Disability management techniques have been around and have evolved into best practices. This makes it easy for employers with a desire to manage claims to put in proven systems. It is often worth investing in an external adjudication firm to assist with the determination of disability and case management while maintaining the employer role of return to work facilitator. Integrated disability management focuses on an employees functional and cognitive abilities rather than just the diagnosis of injury or illness. It includes constantly asking the question can they return to work, and how can we help them do so regardless of the cause.Companies with active disability management programs also send a message to the worker. “we care about you and want you back to work.” Work is a major source of physical and psychological well-being and much evidence exist to link work absence with increased risk of psychological dysfunction. It is important to employees and employers to focus on returning to work.
Measuring success
In the end, companies must take a comprehensive view of disability management, including the benefits reaped, the costs incurred and the costs avoided. You have to say what is our exposure before, and how are we doing now? But once you put a program in place it will take some time to generate those results. However, some research does exist to base the initial formation of the program on including a study done by Habeck, Scully, VonTol & Allan published in the Rehab Counseling Bulletin in 1998, 32 large companies were visited to review disability management practices and their impact. It was clearly concluded that implementation of disability management programs significantly reduced costs.Integrated disability management is a concept whose time has come. Companies that take an integrated approach to disability management will reap the benefits of paying attention to all disability equally and be rewarded with reduced human and financial costs.
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