Does your current workers’ comp program leave you clueless about what your employees are doing and how claims are progressing? By taking a page from the playbook of sports therapy, you can gain more insight into the progress of your workers and thus improve your current program by having more control.

Luke the Pitcher

When a professional athlete is injured, he sees a doctor and is assigned to a physical therapist for one-on-one care. Imagine Luke, a major league baseball pitcher, has a shoulder injury. His doctor and coach consider several things before starting his treatment.

First, playing baseball is Luke’s job. He’s a pitcher, so if he can’t throw that ball well, he’s out of a job. It’s important he get better as fast as possible if the team wants to keep its place in the rankings. Luke’s team has in-house PT facilities — he can start with the physical therapist instantly. They discuss treatment options.

What condition must Luke be in before he can get back out on the field and pitch? He has to pitch the ball at the same level he could before he was injured. Which means he has to move his shoulder in a way that will allow him to stretch back far enough to throw his famous fast ball.

Any physical therapist can get him to the point of no longer being in pain and then stop his therapy. But Luke’s pitching is out of the range of normal motion for most people. He needs specialized care to address that need. With an on-site physical therapist who understands the physical demands of the job he’s doing, Luke gets back on the field faster. It also becomes les likely that he’ll reinjure himself.

Now let’s see how that can be applied to a company’s worker’s compensation claims.

Lucy the Housekeeper

Lucy is a housekeeper with 20 rooms to prepare every day. She works at a luxury hotel, so mattresses are easily 18” – 20” thick. She works on one of the floors reserved for the hotel’s frequent traveler program, which means those rooms get an extra level of detailing. With 20 rooms, she has only 20 minutes to make the bed/change sheets, dust, vacuum, clean the bathroom, reset the curtains, adjust the HVAC and lighting, straighten up, empty the trash, and clean up any messes (and they can be pretty bad). It’s perhaps no surprise, then that Lucy has a torn rotator cuff and low back pain. Instead of traveling to a physical therapist off site, the hotel’s physical therapist comes to her. He goes with her to one of her rooms and asks her to demonstrate all the tasks she completes and how she does them. He’s able to observe specifically what she is doing, how she is holding her body, where she puts her weight, how and when she strains, which muscles she’s using, the shape, weight, and size of things she’s using, moving, and manipulating.

Armed with that information, he’s able to figure out what kind of PT she needs. It’s not just about removing her pain. It’s about eliminating unnecessary stress on her body. He works with her on-site, in a room set aside specifically for PT. Using tools and exercises tailored specifically for Lucy — her body, movements, and job tasks. Her exercises are progressively tailored to increase her capacity to perform her job tasks with no difficulty or pain.

The Results

After each of her 45-minute PT sessions, Lucy returns to her work assignment. Her supervisor no longer wonders where she is, or when she’ll be back.

Throughout the entire process, her supervisor dropped in to see Lucy’s progress. He or she talked with her therapist and received detailed written reports regarding Lucy’s treatment.

Best of all, Lucy’s recovery was faster than with the traditional offsite PT approach and she comes back to work stronger. Lucy now knows how to perform her job correctly to avoid injury in the future.

Is it really such a far stretch to see how having a physical therapist on-site, when you needed one, could be a boon? Professional sports teams understand the value of getting their player back to normal as soon as possible, so why don’t most companies with high workers’ comp claims see the same thing?

It’s often because they are content with the status quo- working with TPAs for their workers’ comp claims and the unknown abyss of workers’ comp processes. It doesn’t have to be that way and there are plenty of reasons why it shouldn’t be.

On-Site Therapy – A Win-Win for Your Workers and You

Professional athletic teams exclusively use the on-site, on-demand physical therapy approach with great success. Their physical therapists are able to go beyond improving range of motion, to increasing strength, and decreasing pain.

Having on-site, on-demand physical therapists at your site means a focus on conditioning your workers’ bodies, allowing them to absorb the correct muscle memory for performing the specific tasks of their jobs. Both of which reduce the potential for future injuries. This type of therapy also reduces the costs you will incur from employee travel expenses and time away from work which results in hiring temps/replacements and lost productivity.

On-the-job injuries will happen. It’s a fact of life. What’s optional is the added stress that comes with having injured workers on the sidelines. Getting fast and effective treatment for them on the work site, when they need it, where it can do them the most good, is something you can have today.

You can take back control and improve your workers’ comp program.