What “best practices” would you recommend to Case Managers?

Interacting with case managers at conferences and workshops, I learn a lot about case management practices that work… and some that don’t.  I hesitate to call the ones that work “best practices”.  The term is over-used and implies an evaluative process that is usually absent.  More often than not, the identified “best practice” is nothing more than an opinion (perhaps informed, occasionally expert but usually otherwise).

The other problem with “best practices” is the implied universality of the term.  Rarely does a discussion of best practices in case management precisely define the domain to which the identified practices apply. Not all case managers have equivalent duties or work within similar organizational structures; not all legislative frameworks allow for information exchanges that might be considered valuable or desirable.   A particular set of best practices may well exist for a narrowly defined role and organization.  In the absence of that definition, any list of best practices devolves into a set of self-evident generalities like “communicate clearly and often”, “intervene early”, “set expectations”.

Rather than propose a list of best practices in case management, here are four practices I have run across often enough to recommend them for your consideration.  

1.       Three point contact. If there is one practice that is mentioned more than any other, it is this one.  It is often modified and expanded to mean, “Case managers should review the file and, within three days of receiving that file, establish contact (preferably personal) with the treating healthcare professional, employer and worker.”  In practical terms, the treating healthcare professional contact may have to be indirect.  Don’t let that stop you from making personal contact with the worker and employer. (Many jurisdictions put this practice in their required procedures for agents and adjudicative staff.  See South Australia WorkCover Claims Operational Guidelines Chapter 6 page 4 as an example applied to agents and New Your State Insurance Fund Global Case Management for one that applies at an insurer team level).

2.       Facilitate personal contact with decision-making employer and worker.  The vast majority of injured workers return to their “at injury” employer.  The timeliness of that return and its long-term success often rest with the case manager.  Often, the manager or supervisor will be the key person mediating the timing of a return to work. Keeping the worker connected to the employer and the employer actively engaged in thinking about RTW for this person may well lead to improved outcomes.  ( I really like the CCOHS document Best Practices for Return-to-Work/Stay-at-Work Interventions for Workers with Mental Health Conditions FINAL REPORT [May 2010] because it is authoritative and well referenced. I think the personal contact practices identified are widely generalizable to most Case Management situations).

3.       Think mid-week this week, not Monday next week.  Case managers can influence the timing of a graduated RTW, light-duty RTW or work trial.  For most Monday to Friday jobs, there is a tendency to set a Monday start date a week or two in hence.  Research tells us that more injuries occur on a Monday than any other day of the week.  This “Monday Effect” phenomenon alone is reason enough to consider a different approach.  Why not consider the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday before as the RTW date?  Not only will this allow a returning worker more time to adjust to a regular work week, it may shorten duration and reduce costs overall.  

4.       Identify barriers…and how to overcome them.  I recently reviewed a case management system where the insurer and staff had developed a new “tab” that required the case manager to identify barriers to RTW.  Case managers themselves had helped design this part of the systems with drop-down menus of the most common barriers raised or identified in case management.  If the barrier source was identified as “employer” and the reason “wants worker to be 100%,” the course of action might be “case conference with employer” generating an actionable item in the system. If the source was “worker” and the reason “fear of re-injury” then the action might be “arrange work conditioning” or “set up light duties with employer.” The point here is not that you need a new case management system but that identifying barriers and ways to overcome them can be an effective technique in case management. 

There are other practices I think are worth considering (subject to jurisdictional law or corporate policy).  One case manager involved in making entitlement decisions asks if the client wants a text message when the decision is made (yes, a full letter will follow or is immediately available on the electronic file but let’s face it, most of us now depend on our smart phones).  Another routinely uses conference calls to have the worker, employer and treating healthcare professional (often a physio or occupational therapist) together to discuss progress and set up RTW trials.

If you have a practice that you think should be considered by Case Managers, share it through a comment. 

What were the rehabilitation and return-to-work highlights from the PIEF Conference?

I’ve recently returned from speaking at the Personal Injury Education Foundation (PIEF) conference in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. PIEF has no exact counterpart in Canada or the United States. It was established in 2006 as a not-for-profit organization by a consortium of Australian and New Zealand accident compensation regulators, insurers, and claims management organisations. They wanted to create programs, initiatives and events focused to raise the common standard of knowledge, skills, and professionalism in the personal injury industry, which covers what North Americans would think of as workers’ compensation, transport accidents compensation, and other injury compensation programs.




My assignment as a keynote speaker was to give a North American perspective on rehabilitation and return to work. (In the interest of full blog disclosure, PIEF funded my travel and registration costs while WorkSafeBC funded salary and other expenses). Highlights for me included hearing the other presenters in the concurrent sessions, other keynote speakers in plenary sessions, and the discussions in the halls, meals, and social events.



The conference opened with a brief talk from an injured worker, Edward Bailey — an ex-pat Canadian who suffered severe back injuries and surgeries that left him unable to work in his 30-year career as a mechanic. He relayed how scary this was, how depressed he became and how the assistance he received to be a trainer and assessor as well as his additional work he does as a technical writer have made all the difference. He said the pain is still there but the rewards of his work allow him to carry on.



That theme of "work being important and good for you and your recovery" was echoed in many sessions. The employer representative who spoke next was Amy Sproule, the Health and Wellness coordinator for Carlton United Brewers — supplier or a quarter of Australia’s beer. She outlined their extensive program which includes on-site physiotherapists (PT) and access to Occupational Therapy (OT), physiatrists, and other allied professionals. She noted that some of the costs for referrals are picked up by WorkCover or by their benefits program but some are just absorbed as an HR cost. She acknowledge that onsite PT was expensive but said it was a visible commitment to early intervention, prevention and RTW — part of a culture they have and want to foster. She concluded that the program makes good business and good moral sense.



The next speaker was Jon Schubert, the president and CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC). He gave a detailed talk focused on transport accidents but some of the research he presented certainly got a reaction from the delegates. For example, he showed how whiplash claims frequency were the lowest in Quebec, a province with a no fault system. He spoke about the Quebec taskforce on whiplash that is widely used for neck pain and the work he was involved in with Saskatchewan that has gone beyond that to focus on a functional model. Interestingly, following the research leads to some surprising outcomes. He noted that some interventions, such as early fitness programs, actually delay recoveries and others have no effect. It raises important questions about what should be funded. Are we doing harm by funding interventions that delay recover, increase disability, or have no effect?



The third keynote speaker in this two-day conference was Professor Sir Mansel Aylward CB, Chair, Public Health Wales and Director, Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research, Cardiff, Wales. His talk was primarily based on the bio-psycho-social model but his message was clear: We have to change our current thinking and models of disability. He called this focus on outcomes, on health and work, “a moral obligation”. He noted that the bio-psycho-social model is now supplanted the standard medical model and has the published, peer-reviewed data with biochemical, neurotransmitter, and other evidence to back it up. “There is a limited correlation with illness, disability and the capacity for work,” he said — a statement that most in the field of vocational rehabilitation would agree with. He advocates return-to-work outcomes becoming an objective of primary care.



Other topics at the conference included how to define and measure client outcomes, the effects on health, psychological, and work status following compensable injury, and predicting common law claims. I took copious notes at this event and know I will be following up on much of what was presented.



Although the event is only held every two years, based on having attended two of the last three I have no hesitation in recommending the PIEF conference. The next one will be Auckland and will be held in conjunction with the International Forum on Disability Management (IFDM). ​