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Taking
Control of Workers' Comp Claims with CompWatch
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Riverton
Industries: A Case Study
Note: The following fictitious case study is based on real life experiences of CompWatch users at a number of different companies.
In the 1990’s, Riverton Industries has seen its workers’ compensation premiums skyrocket. The managers tried to keep rates down by signing up with a carrier that offered minimal customer service and did not provide any summary injury reports (other than a monthly cost breakdown of each claim). This step, however, made only a minimal difference in costs. In 1997, Steve Peterson was put in charge of developing safety training programs. He needed to find out why so many injuries had been occurring and why they were so costly. Fortunately for Steve, his company authorized him to purchase the CompWatch system, including the optional Claims Import/Export and Employee Database modules. He entered his company information and custom codes, including accident locations, departments, names of supervisors and workers’ compensation policies from as far back as 1992. He also imported all his old claim data using the Claims Import/Export module, and he imported Riverton’s current employee personal data from the company’s payroll system into the Employee Database. Steve was careful to enter complete claim information. It’s important to supply the lost or restricted days and all injury-related costs. He also wisely decided to enter claims for "near misses" and first aid-only incidents. He asked the supervisors to inform their employees to report all such cases. In order to keep them separate from OSHA-recordable accidents, he set up two policies: 97F for first aid-only incidents of 1997, and 97N for near misses. After he had entered all incidents and claims, Steve checked to make sure his data was complete and correct. He printed the Claim Completion Verification and Claimant Social Security Number Verification reports. Sure enough, he found some critical claim fields that had not been entered, and he also discovered some Social Security numbers had been incorrectly input. After correcting the data, he took the first step in reducing costs by helping injured claimants get back to work. He produced a Work Status (Still Off Work) report. Pedro Hernandez had hurt his back three weeks before, and his name appeared on the list, but no one seemed to know how Pedro was doing.
Steve called him and discovered that Pedro missed his last doctor’s appointment. Another appointment was then scheduled, and Steve made a note in the Diary Tickler to remind himself to call Pedro on the day of the appointment. He also added a brief summary of the conversation to the Notes tab of Pedro’s claim and put a date beside it.
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