The WC Claims Voyage
September 10, 2024– Michael Marsh
Getting ready for another conference. After the inconvenient time which followed the COVID situation beginning in 2020, convention attendance and in-office working decreased significantly. Few in our industry were not impacted one way or another with work-from-home initiatives and Zoom/Teams sessions. Some organizations forbade the attendance of their employees at mass conventions, while many individuals self-limited their attendance at large gatherings. I've written about the work-from-home phenomenon previously, and will continue to advocate against full-time removal of the claims professional from in-person participation on claims teams.
With the passage of time and the more realistic picture painted about COVID, conventions are making a comeback.
This year, this guy from the sticks (Montana) is on track to be involved in at least 4 conventions of size. I was blessed to be a speaker at the National Council of Self-Insurers meeting in Florida in June. I met so many encouraging, smart and engaged claims folks at that meeting. My presentation about Humanizing the Workers' Compensation Claims Process seemed to touch a chord with many. The off-line discussions about recovering worker engagement in their personal healing process were many and fruitful.
I have recently been confirmed to be a panel speaker at the National Comp meeting in Las Vegas in October 2024. Recognition of the message of my life's work in workers' compensation, treating recovering workers as whole people, not just body parts, is fulfilling. Appearing with others that spend their time and intelligence to help injured/recovering workers and their families is truly a gift. Where like minds gather, results follow.
Our industry likes to gather. Gatherings that include claims people away from their desks and computer screens. Face-To-Face. Much time is spent in hallways and around paper covered folding tables sharing stories of 'weird' claim situations, successes, challenges, failures of management, recently born children, recently passed colleagues. While some may say there is brain drain taking place in workers' compensation claims, my observation is that the industry on the claims side is strong, healthy and attracting many young people. The engagement and commitment that they show is high.
The stories around the tables and in the hallways are plentiful. The noise that fills the gathering spaces is sometimes deafening. But the joy that permeates is palpable. Human beings sharing stories of the positives and negatives of navigating the voyage of helping recovering workers, their families and their employers through the workers' compensation space is an integral part of the claims experience. The claims voyage.
While working on a project and preparing for the 2024 Governor's Conference on Workers' Compensation (Montana), I was listening to the television show Star Trek - Voyager. A quote came across that struck a chord with me. And I began thinking about the 'voyage' that I have had in the claims industry. There are many parallels between Voyager and the claims voyage.
FIrst, who among us has not worked with a group of people that at times we might consider "aliens"?
Like the Voyager crew, many in the workers' compensation claims industry have happened there by chance. In the television series, the crew of Voyager become stranded on the far side of the galaxy, in a portion of space yet unexplored by human beings. Every day is filled with routine duties necessary to keep the ship running and moving towards home...even at the maximum rate they projected 75 years to make it home. And every episode presents a new species to the crew.
Don't new claims sometimes feel like each one is a new species (of human)? There are parallels for sure; interview of witnesses, study the causation, AOE/COE determination, benefit calculations, diary entry, note entry, client and/or special employer handling instructions. Responsibility for maintaining a claims pending is as varied and demanding as maintaining a space ship (fortunately without the chance of a warp core explosion).
We reflect upon the claims teams that we have served with and in some cases I think we may actually be aliens.
The quote that gave rise to this blog was:
"Focus on the goal, not the task"
To me, this line is directly related on point for our jobs with responsibility for management of workers' compensation claims on behalf of recovering workers and their families. For ages we have heard of and seen adjuster/examiner burnout. Some people reach a point where enough is enough. To many traumas, too many injures, too many families ruined, too many lives destroyed by workplace injuries and deaths.
Focus on the goal. In far too many situations, those in the industry related to me stories of burdensome client / employer claim handling instructions, caseload over load, shifting caseloads (like magic, an entire claim pending is shifted to and/or from an examiner with no prior notice or preparation), no claim team collaboration, and not nearly enough time to develop relationships with recovering workers. When the task load by definition exceeds the number of hours in a day, tasks are not completed, diaries are moved or rescheduled, and (importantly) the personal satisfaction that an adjuster/examiner receives when they see results for the recovering worker with whom they are working disappears. Too much work. Too little personal satisfaction. no positive supervisory feedback. Is it a wonder that for some burnout sets in?
Claims administration staff and the stakeholders involved benefit when there is a consistent focus upon the goal. If staff or management allow the task overload to set in, or the focus to fall upon tasks over goals, results suffer. Financial results suffer. Physical healing of recovering workers suffer. The process becomes less efficient and effective.
Takeaway: Focus on the goal, not the task. Every stakeholder in the workers' compensation claims process benefits when the goals are consistently observed.