When an employee is out of work because of an illness or injury, there are both direct and indirect costs to your company. These include lost time, decreased production, hiring, training, overtime, workers’ compensation and disability, says Tina Elliott, manager of the medical services division at the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
Illnesses and injuries also affect the employee in terms of lost training, wages, relationships and time spent transitioning back into the workforce.
To minimize these losses, the Ohio BWC encourages companies to adopt transitional work programs that allow injured employees to voluntarily return to work as soon as safely possible before the worker is 100 percent recovered. These employees are given job-related tasks to accommodate medical restrictions until they can return to their original duties.
“The most important goal is to promote the employee’s recovery and return to work,” Elliott says. “But the transitional work program also is intended to reduce costs associated with work-related injuries and illnesses by decreasing the lost time of the injured worker.”
Besides these cost reductions, by implementing a transitional work program, employers can potentially reduce their workers’ compensation premiums because they will be reducing both their payments of lost-time compensation and the medical costs on claims.
These factors will have a positive impact on the price of employer premiums and experience rating, possibly qualifying the employer for group programs where it may realize additional premium savings.
Here are the five components to a transitional work plan:
- Corporate/company analysis: An on-site review of your company’s demographics, accident-reporting process and return-to-work policy and identification of any barriers by BWC’s staff, your MCO and a third-party administrator.
- Employer/employee relations: An assessment of the union/nonunion relationships with management and creation of a joint labor-management team.
- Written operational guidelines: An identification of community resources that will channel injured workers to their area medical providers and provide quality, comprehensive medical care tailored to industrial injuries. It also includes training to inform workers and supervisors of stay-at-work and early return-to-work processes.
- Job analysis: You must accurately describe your workers’ jobs using worker input, observation and measurements. This document also provides guidelines to identify appropriate tasks that a worker can perform based on his or her capabilities.
- Program evaluation: A policy for your company to review the plan on a regular basis.
Besides the internal benefits, your company may also be able to receive Ohio BWC discounts for implementing or continuing a transitional work program. Employers who received a BWC transitional work program between 2001 and 2006 or those that have a program they created may have their program reviewed by the bureau.
An employer with an approved program then is eligible to apply for the Destination: Excellence Transitional Work Bonus program.
Elliott says this program provides a back-end bonus of up to 10 percent of the employer’s pure premium based on successful use of transitional work in eligible claims with dates of injury within the program year.
The Ohio BWC has awarded more than 258 state-funded employers a Transitional Work Grant to assist them in developing and paying for their customized transitional work plan. In the first four Destination Excellence: Transitional Work Bonus Program periods, which began in July 2012, employers have earned more than $12 million in bonus rebates. The average bonus amount paid to employers per bonus period is $12,088. Many employers are realizing even greater rebates since they may earn up to 10 percent of their pure premium and by re-enrolling in the transitional work bonus program yearly.
FOR MORE INFORMATION on transitional work programs, discounts and grants, contact the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation’s Transitional Work Grant Department at [email protected] or call (800) 644-6292.
