Gerald-Mark (Jerry) Breen had an IQ of 146. He earned a PhD in Health and Public Affairs. He published 30 articles and three books by age 29, one of which was cited by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. He was a co-author of Improving the Quality of Care in Nursing Homes (Johns Hopkins University Press). He was a teacher. He was an accomplished classical pianist. By almost any measure society…
Four words have quietly ended more careers than any layoff: “I already know enough.” I started my professional career as a mainframe computer operator. Today, I'm the Provost of WorkCompCollege.com. There is no logical career path connecting those two jobs, at least not one I could have predicted when I was sitting at the console of a mainframe computer four decades ago. The common thread throughout was curiosity. I have…
The workers’ compensation industry is focused on responding to injuries. What if the most important work comp claim is the one we prevent from ever happening? That question was in my head while moderating the National Comp session “Before the Breaking Point: An Integrated Framework for Workplace Violence Prevention and Response” on September 29. Of all the great content included in the agenda, our session was the only one devoted…
Here is a statistic that seems to contradict itself. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment for claims adjusters, appraisers, examiners, and investigators will decline 6% over the next decade. Yet BLS also projects approximately 21,600 job openings every year. Neither one cancels out the other. Note that the BLS numbers include all insurance claims professionals, not just workers' compensation. But the broader workforce dynamics should sound very familiar.…
A new healthcare workforce study reports that 70% of Gen Z healthcare workers expect to look for a new role (inside or outside their current organization) within the next year. Only 44% of Gen Z feel “very loyal” to their current employer. Those numbers seem to confirm Gen Z stereotypes: They aren’t loyal They’ll leave a job at the first opportunity They expect promotions too quickly They don’t want to…
I had a very difficult June, losing both my daughter-in-law and best friend to cancer. During that time (and since), my mind did something predictable. I replayed the circumstances. The extended battle, the moment, the preparation of my BFF's eulogy / watching my son eulogize his wife, the fond memories of the past that remind me there will be no future memories to make. The replays only helped let something…
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.…
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…
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…
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.),…
