If you’ve seen the thousands of dollars that your company is likely spending on workers’ compensation, you know the importance of communicating with your boss on keeping this cost as low as possible. But how?
We’ve written up a few workers’ comp hot topics that you can quickly go over with your boss at your next meeting. This will give him or her a glimpse into how Approach works with you on claims and let them know that we’re all focused on better safety and lower costs.
Here’s our sample conversation:
You may know that we are in a retro program for L&I refunds and that Approach Management Services helps us with our claims. When we have a claim, there are a few steps we need to take, for two reasons: First, they’ll keep our refunds as high as possible and second, they’ll also keep our premium rate lower, so we’re paying less money up front to L&I.
First, I’d like to schedule Approach for a safety visit here at our office. We are their client and annual visits are free. They’ll help ensure that our documentation is in compliance and that our work practices will pass inspection and prevent injuries. Every member on the Approach safety team has worked at L&I so they know what problem areas to look out for.
Second, if one of our co-workers does get injured, we need to bring him or her back to work as soon as possible. This can be the next day if we have written approval from the doctor. It may have to be light-duty work for a while, but Approach can help us to develop an approved position and file to receive a 50% wage reimbursement from the state. If we don’t bring our co-worker back to work as soon as possible, L&I will pay time-loss to him-her and charge our workers’ comp account 4.5 times what L&I paid out to our co-worker.
It would help if I can have a few hours to work on an injured worker and light-duty packet, so that we’re ready to respond immediately if need be. Approach provides the template in a Word document so that it is easy to be customized to our company.
View our infographic on the 50% wage reimbursement program called Stay-at-Work.
Third, I want to give you a heads-up on something called Kept-on-Salary. Basically, it means that if someone is injured at work and the doctor won’t allow them to come back right away, we continue paying their usual wages while they are off work. This only lasts until they can come back to light-duty and is usually just a few days.
It sounds unusual, but we’d be doing it so that our co-worker wouldn’t have to get time-loss payments. Those get charged to our workers’ comp account (4.5 times what L&I paid) and then rates go up, just like with car insurance, so KOS pays for itself in the long-run.
View our infographic on the Kept-on-Salary process.
Finally, I just wanted to share all of this with you as a guideline. If a claim is filed, our Approach Retro Coordinator is going to help us with the paperwork and help us make the right call. If you have any questions now, I can run them by our retro coordinator and get back to you.
That’s it! Definitely do contact your Approach Retro Coordinator whenever you or your boss have questions about the claims process or workplace safety.
