In last week’s blog, I wrote about the claims strategy of empathy as a recap from the WCI conference. Just a few days later, I was sitting in a room at the Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation conference listening to two experts make that idea tangible. The session was titled “When Life Is Not a Beach.” It featured Josh Schuette of Brooks Rehabilitation and Scott Hoskins of Shamrock Prosthetics.…
I have been in workers’ compensation for more than 30 years, and somehow, this year was the first time I attended WCI. I’m still asking myself, what took me so long? Before heading to Orlando, I knew WCI was a big conference. I had heard about the thousands of attendees, the hundreds of educational sessions and the enormous exhibit hall, but I don't think you can really appreciate the magnitude…
Every claims organization I work with has a technology budget line and a training budget line. In most budget meetings, the technology line wins the argument almost by default. New software has a demo. It has a dashboard. It photographs well in a board presentation. Training does not have any of that, so it gets treated as overhead and trimmed first. I want to walk through why that instinct, reasonable…
It took two and a half years before anyone asked Becky Curtis what she wanted to do for work. Not what her injury was. Not what her restrictions were. What she wanted to do. That single fact is why I'm writing this. I introduced the benefits of a biopsychosocial rather than biomedical treatment model in 2010, before most people in work comp had heard the term. In fact, most early…
After my last two blogs, Adjusters Are People, Too and AI Should Give Me Time, Not More Claims, I felt the need to address this from the carrier’s and third-party administrator’s perspective, too. My experience running the workers’ compensation program for The University of Texas System (UT System), who was defined by law as the insurance carrier for the institutions within the system, taught me the carrier perspective. I understand…
Midway through the session, the conversation shifted. Someone began sharing a decision they were struggling with. One of those defining leadership moments where there isn’t a clear right answer, only consequences. As they spoke, I found myself leaning in, not just out of interest, but recognition. I had faced that exact situation. And then someone else added their perspective. And another. Different industries. Different contexts. The same underlying challenge. I…
Every claim organization has run this math at some point. A senior adjuster leaves. The open requisition sits for weeks. A new hire finally starts, spends the first six months learning the file types, the jurisdictional rules, and the carrier's own claims philosophy. Somewhere in that gap, claim drifts. Reserves get set late. Litigation rates creep up. The organization pays for all of it twice, once in recruiting cost and…
One of the biggest misconceptions in workers' compensation is that injured workers lose trust when something goes wrong. A claim is denied A treatment request is delayed A utilization review doesn't go their way An independent medical examination reaches an unexpected conclusion Those events certainly can damage trust. But in my experience, distrust usually begins much earlier. It often begins before the first potentially negative decision is ever made. An…
Part 2: What Happens When Technology Gives the Adjuster Time Back? Last week, I introduced you to Sarah. Sarah is completely fictitious, but the workload isn't. Sarah represents the adjusters sitting behind desks all over the country, trying to balance claim inventories, deadlines, medical records, phone calls, emails, metrics and an injured person who needs more than a claim number. At the end of Part 1, we left Sarah with…
One of my favorite sessions at the California Coalition on Workers' Compensation (CCWC) annual conference had an incredibly long title: "Best Practices Californians Can Learn from Other States to Find Solutions for Cost Containment, AI Adaptation, and More." Thankfully, the conversation itself was much more concise than the title. More importantly, it offered a perspective that extends well beyond California. The panel included Stuart Colburn, Esq. (Downs & Stanford, P.C.),…
