What's Next
Agency Guidelines for Administering the Disability Management/Return to Work Process
- Designate a department/division within the agency to administer the disability management/return to work process.
- Develop a plan outlining a standard process and the responsibilities of the various participants within the disability management/return to work process. The plan should include:
- Goal
- Benefits
- Duration
- Definitions
- Administrative Responsibilities
- Agencies that have high frequency injury rates for certain job classes are to develop a bank of alternate duty tasks/posts that recovering injured workers can be placed if they are unable to return to their normal assignment with restrictions.
- Identify the physical demands of the alternate duty task/post so the third party claims administrator can provide to the attending physician.
- Once an injured worker has been returned to a modified/restricted or alternate duty assignment, it is critical to always properly discharge all Core-CT Time and Labor functions to properly record the return to work within the system.
- Refer to the Job Data and Time Sheet sections of the DAS Core-CT Processing Manual for specific coding and recording procedures.
- Communicate to the workforce that the agency is committed to the process and will attempt to place all identified candidates in modified/alternative employment during the recovery of a workers’ compensation injury.
How Can DAS Workers’ Compensation Assist Agencies in Establishing or Supporting Existing Disability Management/Return to Work Initiatives?
- Work with your human resource staff to develop the plan.
- Review and support any existing plan.
- Identify restricted/modified or alternate duty candidates through file reviews with third party claims administrator.
- Analyze loss for high frequency job classifications and the development of alternate duty task assignments.
- Provide possible financial assistance to purchase ergonomic equipment to support modified or alternate duty task assignments