• You can call WCB and request that they intervene on your behalf,
explaining your situation and hope that they will take up your
side of the issue and request the care provider re-evaluate their
evaluation and provide some RTW restrictions.
• You can manage the issue on your own, make contact
immediately with the care provider and ensure they have all
the necessary information so that they can make an informed
decision based on all the relevant information.
All of the above choices are okay, depending on your particular
situation, but I lean towards option three. Why not have the WCB
work on it for us? Their decision will be based strictly by the medical
information on file, and if it says no RTW, then that is what they will
generally go with, pure and simple.
Here is what you would have to do: Call and speak with the treat-ing
therapist personally. Identify yourself as the employer and
explain that your company has a full RTW program and in this pro-gram
your company has a policy that you will accommodate any
and all restrictions, no matter what they are. Often what occurs is
either the therapist is under the impression that there is no accom-modations
available and the worker must be fully fit to return to
their pre-injury job before they can go back to work or the injured
worker has told them there are no light duties available that they are
aware of. Miscommunication is often the result of the worker being
given a complete time off work as opposed to the care provider not
wanting to co-operate with a RTW program.
The employer must be very calm during this portion of negoti-ations.
You are in the right by telling the treatment team that you
have accommodated duties that can be suited to any physical de-mands
or limitations. This has to be structured in such a way that
the treatment team has to agree to it and make it so that they can
form it into their planning and way of making their decision.
I went through a circumstance like this where a physiotherapist
put a worker completely off work for two weeks, no return to work
at all. I called the physiotherapist and discussed the employer's very
robust RTW program that we had set up for them, how they were
willing to accommodate any restrictions and all the therapist had to
do was lay out the restrictions and we would accommodate them.
The therapist was very surprised because he was under the impres-sion
that there was nothing available for the worker to do at the job-site
that might be suitable for his injury. We negotiated a full return
to work with accommodations that the therapist was very happy
with and that supported the overall health and recovery of the in-jured
worker.
During the process I also, on behalf of the employer, offered to
expedite advanced diagnostics like an MRI or CT scan if the treat-ment
team thought that might be helpful in diagnosing and treat-ing
the injured worker more efficiently. They were surprised, but
very pleased to learn that the employer was willing to pay for that
expense for the injured worker. I advised that if it would help the
injured worker get better faster, get more efficient treatment, etc.,
then we were on board for it. Why would the employer do that? Well,
maybe that is food for thought for an article in the future.
In conclusion, as we have stated many times before, you, as the
employer, must manage your claims, take responsibility from the
very beginning and don’t leave anything to chance.
You, as the employer, must manage
your claims, take responsibility
from the very beginning and
don’t leave anything to chance.
TEXELART/123RF
INJURY SOLUTIONS
thinkbigmagazine.ca | Quarter 1 2019 | Think BIG 43
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