The Client and Its Challenge
A major U.S. school district was facing high workers' compensation costs. Culturally, the organization treated the issue as an unfixable problem. Non-accountability on the part of medical and therapy providers to create job-specific rehabilitation goals further compounded this problem. To address these issues, the client decided to incorporate physical capacity and functional testing into the district's workers' compensation program.

The Risk Consulting Solution
Working with BTE Technologies, the physical demands of each job were measured and recorded using technology-based systems to accurately document functional and physical capacity requirements for each job and its related tasks. The consulting team also developed an ability-testing program, designed to track the claimant's medical progress and readiness to return to work. Because the program relied on independent and verifiable measurements, improvements, degradation, and inconsistencies in medical evaluations could be more easily identified and tracked.

A certification program was then rolled out to medical professionals. Training included background physical capacity testing referencing the physical requirements of each job and using functional capacity measurements to support appropriate medical care. With this additional information, providers were able to make case-specific recommendations with job- and goal-specific medical interventions. Since medical improvements were carefully measured and tracked, the district was able to work more closely with medical providers to streamline the return-to-work process.

Results
With the physical-capacity-testing program in place, school district workers' compensation expenses were reduced by $3 million per year. Workers' compensation lost-time cases were reduced from an average of 22 weeks to eight weeks.