By Paul Binsfeld, president and founder of Company Nurse, LLC
It All Began with a Simple Goal
The workers’ comp industry can be frustrating. I know this from experience.
Before starting Company Nurse, I worked as a consultant, helping employers manage workers’ compensation costs. This included implementing a process to help these companies manage workplace injury claims.
To properly manage these claims, I needed to be immediately notified of these injuries and know exactly what happened. For the first few months of working with each client, getting notified wasn’t an issue at all.
However, after this initial period, I found myself left out of the loop. Whether it was from turnover, confusion, or just plain forgetting, there was a lack of communication. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to manage claims that aren’t reported to you.
Finally, inspiration struck when I needed immediate medical assistance to take care of my daughter. Worried about her high fever, my wife wanted to take her to the emergency room.
That’s when I saw it. A magnet on our fridge from our health insurance provider had the number for a 24/7 nurse triage service. With the nurse’s guidance, we were able to cool down her fever, saving us an expensive trip to the ER.
“Why can’t we do this for workers’ comp?”, I thought to myself. Putting a nurse at the front-end of the process would not only encourage the employee to report the claim, but also allow them to get immediate care.
I envisioned Company Nurse with the simple goal of getting as much information about workplace injuries as quickly as possible. However, as I wrote the business plan, the goal quickly evolved to include getting this information to the other stakeholders (medical providers, safety advisors, claims adjusters, managers, etc.). I knew that if those stakeholders got high-quality information quickly, they would be able to better do their jobs. The employee would receive superior care and the employer would save time and money.
Keep Your Eye on the Prize
Today, this goal has evolved into addressing workplace incidents (with solutions such as commercial auto, general liability, property, student accidents, and, of course, workers’ compensation nurse triage), with the core purpose of transforming organizational risk management and reporting by streamlining the collection, management, and secure access and delivery of information.
For example, with our nurse triage and workplace injury solution, quality information about workplace injuries is quickly sent to all the stakeholders, ensuring employees receive superior care and employers save time and money.
To maintain this goal, we measure and assess progress. Through our leading indicators, we’re able to clearly understand if we are on track to reach our clients’ own goals.
So, what are these indicators? When it comes to nurse triage, we look at the reduction of lag times between the occurrence and reporting of the injury. We also measure the decrease in the rate of referrals to emergency departments. Finally, we examine the quality and quantity of information collected from the injured employee as well as the actual claims’ costs.
All of these indicators focus on our goal of employees getting the right care and employers saving time and money. Workplace accidents don’t seem so painful anymore, do they?
Looking Toward the Future
To encourage everyone at Company Nurse to keep this focus, we continually plan and communicate with one another. Every quarter, our teams create a set of initiatives to help us accomplish our goal and follow through with our purpose.
We measure and track ourselves, always asking if each action we take is improving workplace incident reporting and management.
When we keep everyone focused on the core purpose and goal, everything else falls in line.
What’s your company’s core purpose and goal? How do you keep your focus?