People sometimes ask me why we called it WorkCompCollege. It’s a fair question. The word “college” carries certain expectations like ivy-covered buildings, tenured professors, four-year degrees. We don’t have any of those things. What we do have is a belief that stuck with me for years before it finally became an organization: the workers’ compensation industry had an education problem, and until we solve it, nothing else we try will…
A claim can be medically stable yet remain operationally stuck. The injured employee is waiting for a clear next step, the supervisor is unsure what work can be offered, and the claims team is managing wage replacement that may have been avoidable. The best return to work policies prevent that drift by turning recovery into a coordinated, respectful, and measurable process. For workers’ compensation organizations, return to work is not…
An injured employee may remember a claims conversation for years, particularly the first one. They may not recall every benefit detail, but they will remember whether the person on the other end sounded rushed, skeptical, clear, and respectful. That is why learning how to teach claim empathy cannot be treated as a soft-skills exercise detached from claim operations. It is a performance discipline that affects trust, treatment engagement, attorney involvement,…
An injured worker who hears, “Your claim has been accepted,” may still leave the first conversation unclear about whether tomorrow’s appointment is covered, how wage benefits work, or what happens if the physician restricts work. That gap is where anxiety, missed appointments, complaints, and attorney involvement often begin. How adjusters explain benefits clearly is therefore not a courtesy skill. It is a core claims-management capability with direct consequences for recovery,…
Longtime workers’ compensation leader to guide national nonprofit as it approaches its 40th anniversary LAKEWOOD RANCH, Fla. — July 22, 2026 — Workers’ Compensation Educational Services, LLC (WCES), operating as WorkCompCollege.com, today announced that its President, Bob Wilson, has been elected Chair of the Board of Kids’ Chance of America, Inc. (KCOA), the national nonprofit dedicated to providing educational scholarships to the children of workers who have been seriously or…
Every claims organization has a handbook. Procedures are documented. Protocols are established. Best practices are laminated and posted in break rooms. From a compliance standpoint, most operations have their bases covered. And yet, if you pulled ten random claim files from ten different organizations – all following the same state statutes, all subject to the same regulations – you’d find dramatically different experiences for the injured workers involved. Same rules.…
A difficult claim rarely breaks down because an adjuster cannot identify a form or read a medical report. More often, the failure begins earlier: an injured worker does not understand what happens next, a supervisor receives unclear return-to-work guidance, or a claims professional responds to conflict with process rather than judgment. That is why the question, is claims certification worth it, deserves a more rigorous answer than “it looks good…
An adjuster can understand coverage, reserves, and statutory requirements and still contribute to a claim that drifts toward attorney involvement, delayed care, or a failed return to work. The missing capability is often not effort. It is role based adjuster education that connects technical decisions to the human experience of injury, recovery, and workplace reintegration. Workers' compensation organizations do not improve claim outcomes by treating education as a compliance event.…
A Medicare issue identified after settlement is not a minor file correction. It can expose a carrier, TPA, employer, claimant representative, or vendor to recovery demands, delayed settlements, and avoidable administrative expense. The best MSP compliance courses prepare workers’ compensation professionals to recognize Medicare Secondary Payer obligations early enough to influence claim strategy - not merely to clean up problems after the release is signed. For claims organizations, MSP education…
A new adjuster’s first difficult call with an injured worker is not merely a customer service moment. It can influence trust, attorney involvement, treatment adherence, return-to-work expectations, and the future cost of the claim. That is why the top workers comp onboarding mistakes are operational risks, not routine HR issues. When organizations treat onboarding as paperwork and system access, they leave frontline professionals unprepared for the decisions and conversations that…
