CINCINNATI, Ohio -- Every workplace has its share of injuries, but third-party treatment services that limit the severity of such injuries and numb the economic effects of workers' compensation claims are gaining greater prominence among convenience retailers. One of these service providers, for example, has helped a chain of nearly 200 stores trim its annual medical expenses by 25%.
Next month will mark four years since Cincinnati-based United Dairy Farmers Inc. (UDF) inked a deal to use a telephone-based triage service from Medcor Inc., McHenry, Ill. The service helps determine which [image-nocss] parts of the body are and are not affected in a workplace injury, thereby prescribing the optimal treatment and expediting recovery. Donna Hadley, UDF's manager of payroll and benefits, called the service "the best thing we've done with our workers' comp program in 10 years."
In the event of an injury, the employee's immediate supervisor dials into a Medcor call center, which is staffed 24/7 by registered nurses trained in workplace injury triage. All details of the call are recorded: name and location of the patient, what they were doing at the time of the injury—"everything you need to put in an OSHA log," said Hadley.
Aided by a software system, the nurse asks the supervisor and the injured employee a number of questions to asses the extent of the injury. The nurse then recommends a course of treatment, which, depending on the assessment, may include a visit to an off-site medical facility for additional attention. Many are simply given proper self-care instructions and can remain at work, thereby preventing unnecessary claims.
"If it's a muscle sprain, the nurse may tell the employee to put ice on it and not heat," Hadley told CSP Daily News. "Maybe before they would go sit in a hot tub all weekend and make it even worse.… Most of the injuries are minor from slips and falls and coffee burns. We used to have people calling 911 for coffee burns on their hand."
UDF use to have an internal 800 number that tacitly left the responsibility of assessing employee injuries in the laps of store managers. Some managers overreacted and unnecessarily sent injured employees to the nearest emergency room in an ambulance, according to Hadley, whose company has 3,000 employees helping run 190 stores in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Excessive claims and the accompanying costs piled up.
"Our medical expenses dropped 27% in the first year [of using Medcor]," she said. "We have the same number of reported injuries. In the past maybe 25% of our reported injuries did not have to go for treatment. In the last three years it's been 40%."
But the service is by no means designed to prevent treatment. Rather, it's supposed to help employers and their support staffs save time and money by making better decisions when dealing with workplace injuries, according to Curtis Smith, executive vice president of Medcor.
"Injuries that are minor in nature or won't benefit from further care are identified and prevented," he said. "And when off-site services are needed…not everybody that needs to go to the doctor needs to go to the ER. And not everybody that needs to go to the ER needs to go in an ambulance. It's an issue that's affecting the fabric of the country, and most employers are stuck in that system."
For UDF, savings have come from reduced claims but also from working closely with occupational medical centers, whose services tend to be less costly than those offered by emergency rooms, when injuries do require off-site treatment. The company works with approximately 100 occupational medical centers throughout its three-state operating territory, according to Hadley.
"A [Medcor] nurse would be able to get an employee to go to the occupational medical center, where you could be talking about a difference of at least $800 in treatment costs," she said. "We had people who would go to an ER for a laceration, and we would still have to pay the same ER fee that you would have paid if it was a heart attack."
The service has also provided the company with documentation and some form of protection when questionable or fraudulent claims arise. Hadley recalled one incident in which an employee slipped at the job site. Initially the employee did not report any problems with or pain in her limbs but later filed a claim suggesting she hurt a knee in the fall.
"We had a recording of her saying she didn't hurt her knees when she fell," said Hadley. "We've had knee claims that cost us $100,000. Keeping a claim out of the system—it's hard to put a number on what that saves us."
Some 50% of all calls Medcor fields can be resolved over the phone through first aid or self-care only, according to Smith. And when that happens, it never becomes a claim. But as with any service, it's no good unless it's put to use.
"It's a vaccine for claims," he said. "But it only works when you take it. So there is a bit of a burden on the operator to implement a work rule that says, 'If you get hurt you have to call this number'."
While Hadley wasn't willing to share exactly how much her company pays to use the service, she did say that "the ROI has been favorable." On average, the company's annual medical expenses have gone down by 25%, but "the rest is hard to quantify," she said.
"One thing that surprised us was we thought managers would not be happy with having to make the call [to Medcor]," she said. "But the managers were relieved they didn't have to make the decision, and there was relief that people knew what to do if they were hurt.… It's probably the best thing we've done with our workers' comp program in 10 years."
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