In our last blog article, we talked about whether your company should offer rehab at work. Now let’s take a closer look at the benefits rehab at work can bring your company and your employees.

Job-Specific Relevance

The plan of care and treatment details are unique to each injured worker – and to each person’s job. That makes them more relevant and more effective.

PhysNet’s physical therapists are specialists in treating injured workers. That’s all they do. At a traditional therapy clinic, therapists often have to multi-task during sessions. That means they may be working with patients that have a wide variety of different reasons for needing therapy while treating your injured worker. Their time and attention are divided, and so is their expertise. Rehab at work is 100% focused on the individual. One-on-one sessions assure personal attention from the therapist the entire time, without distractions.

Treating patients at their jobsite allows the physical therapist to see the actual working environment, not just a written job description. They can watch how your worker moves as they perform job tasks. And they can teach them safer ways to work in the future.

Improved Communication

• Between the physical therapist and your injured worker. They work as a team toward efficient recovery.
• Between you and the PT. It’s easy to get frequent updates on patient progress.
• Between you and your injured worker. You can drop in on a therapy session to encourage your employee and praise their progress.

Improved Employee Engagement

Visiting the workplace for physical therapy helps injured workers feel included. Too often, employees who are out of work feel isolated. They become depressed. They may wonder if they will ever recover, or if their job will still exist when they do recover.

The greater convenience of on-site PT ensures more reliable compliance with treatment schedules. Streamlining the process for employees helps get them back to work as soon as possible. They’re earning a paycheck again, and that relieves financial worries that come with disability.

It all adds up to greater job satisfaction, and that boosts retention.

Reduced Costs

On-site physical therapy can reduce costs in a number of ways.  The rehab is an on-demand service that gives your company all the benefits of an on-site clinic without the costs. You don’t pay for services you don’t need, yet it’s always there when you need it. Physical therapists schedule treatment sessions directly with each injured worker. That’s more efficient.

Rehab at work eliminates travel-related expenses associated with traditional therapy clinic visits. This also saves time for your injured workers. At busy clinics, they can run into scheduling problems or have to wait for delayed appointments.

Easier compliance with physical therapy schedules means recovery doesn’t drag on any longer than necessary. Injured workers get back to work sooner, reducing claims costs and potential productivity losses during their absence. Nationwide, injured workers have to visit an offsite clinic an average of 17 times to reach work-ready status. They require only 9.5 visits with their on-site physical therapist. They can get back to work almost twice as fast.

Re-Injury Prevention

One of the major concerns for workers’ comp managers is repeat injuries. Rehab at work greatly reduces the risk of re-injury because on-site physical therapists teach workers how to perform job tasks in a safe manner. PhysNet clients average re-injury rates of just 3%. The national average is 18% -- 6x higher.

Accelerated physical therapy gets workers back to work sooner. Your workers’ comp costs are lower. Significantly lower. And you don’t have to settle for the national average return-to-work rate of just 70%. Rehab at work can boost your return-to-work rate as high as 95%. That’s a dramatic increase, with dramatic results for your bottom line.