Is your business prepared to respond to a workplace injury? Are you aware of the degree of costs incurred when injuries occur? Most importantly - are you set-up to provide the highest level of care and support to your employees when injured?
If you are thinking, “Isn’t that what workers’ compensation insurance is for?” – think again.
Yes, workers’ compensation provides coverage for workplace injuries; but simply having workers’ compensation insurance does not mean you are prepared to handle them.
Cost of Workplace Injuries
Properly managing workplace injuries is not only important to the injured employee and their family, it is important to your bottom line. Your business may experience annual premium increases over a three year period due to just one mismanaged injury. Unprepared businesses could have their annual premiums double.
Being properly prepared provides significant value and cost savings to your business. When an injury is managed properly, the cost charged to your policy can be discounted by 70%. Do the math – that could be a significant savings for you. You can also retain the knowledge and value provided from your injured worker by offering them the opportunity to heal at work with light duty restrictions – which is proven to help them heal at a faster rate. You’ll be able to bid more competitively and on more jobs… as many general contractors now require subcontractors to have an experience modification factor at or below 1.0.
When an injury occurs – who do you call for help?
What does your employee do? Do they need medical treatment?
Prepared employers are providing Nurse Triage Service – a 24 hour hotline to a registered nurse for the employee to contact immediately after a non-life threatening workplace injury. The nurse will help identify the level of care and treatment needed for the employee and, in many cases, return the employee back to work with a treatment plan. 40% of these phone calls result in the employee returning to work without a workers’ compensation insurance claim being opened. These recorded phone calls have also been effective in helping reduce workers’ compensation fraud.
Okay – so you’re not 100% prepared – what can you do next? Contact an expert at WorkComp Solutions. Our focus is helping employers build and install the processes and support structure needed to properly manage workplace injuries. We’ll help you provide the highest level of care for your injured workers, with the lowest possible impact to your workers’ compensation insurance premiums.